Each family is a light in the darkness of this world, Pope says at prayer vigil

October 05, 2015

Pope Francis took part in a prayer vigil in St. Peter’s Square on October 3, the eve of the beginning of the synod of bishops on the family.

“Just a year ago, in this same Square, we invoked the Holy Spirit and asked that - in discussing the theme of the family - the Synod Fathers might listen attentively to one another, with their gaze fixed on Jesus, the definitive Word of the Father and the criterion by which everything is to be measured,” he said.

“This evening, our prayer cannot be otherwise,” he continued. “[W]ithout the Holy Spirit God is far off, Christ remains in the past, the Church becomes a mere organization, authority becomes domination, mission becomes propaganda, worship becomes mystique, Christian life the morality of slaves.”

The Pope added:

So let us pray that the Synod which opens tomorrow will show how the experience of marriage and family is rich and humanly fulfilling. May the Synod acknowledge, esteem, and proclaim all that is beautiful, good and holy about that experience. May it embrace situations of vulnerability and hardship: war, illness, grief, wounded relationships and brokenness, which create distress, resentment and separation. May it remind these families, and every family, that the Gospel is always “good news” which once again enables us to start over. From the treasury of the Church’s living tradition may the Fathers draw words of comfort and hope for families called in our own day to build the future of the ecclesial community and the city of man.

“Every family is always a light, however faint, amid the darkness of this world,” Pope Francis continued, as he recalled the Holy Family and discussed Blessed Charles de Foucauld’s spirituality. “To understand the family today, we too need to enter - like Charles de Foucauld – into the mystery of the family of Nazareth, into its quiet daily life, not unlike that of most families, with their problems and their simple joys, a life marked by serene patience amid adversity, respect for others, a humility which is freeing and which flowers in service, a life of fraternity rooted in the sense that we are all members of one body.”

 

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Further information:

• Veglia di preghiera per il Sinodo sulla Famiglia (Holy See Press Office)
• Pope Francis at prayer vigil ahead of Synod on the Family (Vatican Radio)