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This provides the focus for 2006 and addresses
the need for welcoming, family sensitive, friendly parishes. The aim is
to offer understanding, friendship and support to all, to be a source of
help in times of need, to help everyone in the parish feel that they
belong there and to encourage and celebrate all family life whether
married, widowed, single, divorced, separated, with or without children.
In addition to the central resources available on the
website (www.everybodyswelcome.org.uk), there are a series of events this year, starting with a
conference for families between 20 and 22 January at High Leigh in
Hertfordshire.
"This initiative is based upon what families have
told us through Listening 2004," said Bishop John Hine, chair of the
Bishops committee for Marriage and Family Life.
"Families talked about how important the parish was
to them. It is a community in which they want to feel known, accepted
and loved for who they are. They want to experience their parish as a
place where they can find friendship and to experience their parish as a
wider family to whom they can turn in times of joy and sorrow. They
would love their parish to be a place where their values are shared and
reinforced and a place where they find spiritual nourishment. They also
expressed a desire for practical help, including information and
skills to help them become better family people.
"Sadly we heard from families who did not experience
any of these things in their parish communities. Some felt quite
isolated and alone.
"A great deal of work has been done already on these
issues in so many parishes across the country, and in our programme 'Everybody's
Welcome' we aim to share the ways that have been discovered and
tried out. These are ways of being sensitive to family needs, ways of
being welcoming, ways of being family friendly and we hope that local
parishes are able to benefit from this work so identified needs are
addressed and parishes become the focus for the family."
Dioceses were launching the initiative throughout
January. On Sunday, the Archbishop of Birmingham Vincent Nichols, wrote
in a pastoral letter that the Christian family is a true representation
of the Church and the smallest unit building up the great universal
Church, the family of God.
"Being a welcoming, family-friendly parish means more
than ensuring that there is a kindly face to greet people as they arrive
for Sunday Mass, important though that is. It means discovering the
needs of those around us and finding ways that those needs can be met.
It calls everyone to review their deepest attitudes towards other
people, especially those who, in some way, may be different to them,"
said Archbishop Vincent Nichols.
"In this family of God, as lived in each parish,
there are many diverse needs and many different talents. The invitation
of the Lord is to ensure that we use the gifts he has given us as best
as we can, thereby ensuring that the different needs are met. Being a
truly welcoming and family-friendly parish means just that."
POPE CAME TO VALENCIA
Vth World Meeting of Families counted huge success
Yes! In those simple words ‘the Pope came to
Valencia’ lie a depth of sensibility we find difficult to comprehend in
these days of global travel and accessibility.
But think! In the words of ‘ABC’, the leading Spanish
daily, on the morning of Benedict’s visit; ‘ this old gentleman, not
robust in body yet with a lively face and something childlike about him,
who carries the formidable and unique weight of feeling and knowing he
is the Vicar of Christ on earth …. an infinite weight, transferable to
no other human being, which cannot be shared with anyone …..’
Saturday, 8 July, 2006, was a day to keep in the
memory for ever. My wife, Gislinde and I were on the 06.55 Euromed train
(another Eurostar) from Alicante to Valencia. We had risen at 5 and were
drinking coffee in the station café, with dozens of other ‘alicantinos’,
pilgrims all, in the station café by 6.15.
By 8.30, we were on a free bus, from the station to
the place where the Holy Father would celebrate Mass at 9.30. It was
already 100F. Fortunately, we had checked out the site earlier in the
week, whilst attending the Pastoral Congress, so we were familiar with
that part of Valencia. We also had seats reserved, alongside our fellow
British pilgrims, more than 100 of whom had travelled to Spain, to
represent British families at this world meeting of families. We two
were the only ones from Wales.
Imagine a vast parkland site, framed by a spectacular
statement of modernity, a trio of buildings forming the City of Arts and
Sciences, erected as recently as 2001. The focus is a simple altar,
surmounted by a plain white tower, adorned with a simple cross, standing
proudly high – ‘in hoc signo’. Everywhere, but everywhere, the papal
colours of yellow and white predominate. Pilgrims walk steadily – and
steadfastly, no one rushes – towards their allotted area. There is a
buzz abroad, no great noise, just a buzz; in many grassy enclosures, we
can see the remains of temporary ‘sleeping quarters’, bedrolls and
sleeping bags, rucksacks, tired children, for many have slept ‘on site’
all night.
We find our colleagues and are welcomed warmly. We
cannot see the Altar, but huge screens are placed in strategic
positions; not all can understand the introduction and welcome to the
Mass by Archbishop Garcia Gasco of Valencia, but those who need are able
to use for instantaneous translation the short-wave radios we were given
during the Congress, organised by the Pontifical Council for the Family.
The Pope begins Mass; all join in the responses in
their own language; he preaches about the family; we listen attentively
and are fired by his words; the silence is palpable.
This is a miraculous, some would say
divinely-inspired visit. Three years ago, in July, 2003, at the
conclusion of the 4th World Meeting in Manila, Philippines, Pope John
Paul II announced that the next encounter would be in Valencia, Spain.
In 2004, in the immediate aftermath of the Madrid terrorist bombings,
when more than 200 Spaniards died, the present Socialist Government of
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was elected by default, defeating the
incumbent Government, which had been coasting to an easy and predictable
victory. How strange that Pope Benedict’s arrival in Valencia should be
marked by a horrific Metro accident, at a station called Jesus, which
gave him the opportunity to pause on his way from the airport, meet the
Royal Family there and pray for the victims and speak to their
relatives.
The Zapatero Government has done more in 2 years to
undermine traditional concepts of family and married life than any other
European government. A series of measures which seem calculated to break
down values which have probably been more rigidly adhered to in Spain
than in most other countries in the Northern Hemisphere, has included
legalising fast-track divorce, gay marriage, medically-assisted
fertilisation and abortion and reversing previously agreed plans to make
RE lessons mandatory in schools.
What did Benedict say? Most of it has been far better
reported in the Press, both Secular and Religious than words of mine can
convey. I have available transcripts of his 2 homilies and have
circulated the special E-bulletin of the ‘Celebrating Family’ team,
containing an impressive list of ‘soundbites’ to all PP’s and Parish
Reps of Menevia Family Life. They should be on your parish Noticeboard.
Essentially, his message was unchanging: the family,
founded on an indissoluble bond between a man and a woman is not
something haphazard, but part of God’s loving plan. It is a ‘necessary
good for peoples, an indispensable foundation for society and a great
and lifelong treasure for couples’. The whole theme of the Pastoral
Congress and the Papal Mass was centred on the importance of the family
in ensuring the transmission of the faith. Pope Benedict emphasised that
families have a duty to ensure that the ‘Good News of Christ reaches
their children with the utmost clarity and authenticity’, by themselves
consistently ‘living out His values of love and and charity’.
But what these reports cannot convey is atmosphere,
ambient. As I said at the beginning, it was an unforgettable and
unmissable experience. Those of us who were privileged to be in Valencia
experienced a sense of renewal. The whole encounter confirmed everything
we know about the problems of the family in modern society and gave us
renewed faith to trust in the Holy Spirit to help us continue in our
work in family life ministry.
Let me finish with a little anecdote. As we walked
for two hours back to the station, in torrid heat, through streets
deserted except for the dispersing pilgrims, we came to a road block.
Word spread that the Pope would pass there, on his way to the airport …
which he did, our only actual sighting of His Holiness…, brief but
memorable. Then, as we got on the train, a young man spoke to me, in
English. I asked him whether he’d been at the Mass. ‘No’, he said, I’ve
been in Valencia on business, but I actually saw the Pope …. and I feel
quite privileged!’ What a lovely note to end on!
The next World Meeting of Families will take place in
Mexico in 2009'
Peter Macpherson
Diocesan Family Life
Commission throws a party
A very popular and well-loved member of the Diocesan
Commission for Family Life left recently to continue her work in
Ireland.
Acting also as University Chaplain from the Catholic
Chaplaincy in Uplands, Swansea, Sister Elizabeth Guidera, of the
Ursulines of Jesus had always taken a close interest in the life of the
family, particularly in the Cathedral and St. Joseph’s School.
During the last 5 years, she has been a member of the
Commission. Her contribution, based on the considerable wisdom of a
senior member of her congregation and the wide experience garnered in
her career as a Teacher, has been invaluable. In addition to her evident
spiritual awareness, her deep sense of caring and commitment have led,
no doubt, to her being called to take up this new work in Ireland. Our
loss is their gain, trite but true.
This much was articulated by Peter Macpherson,
Director of Menevia Family Life, when, on behalf of Bishop Mark and
Bishop Mullins and of his colleagues on the Commission, a small dinner
party was given in her honour and she was presented with two volumes of
the works of Fr. Daniel O’Leary, well-known Priest, Lecture and Writer,
who had led the recent day-long seminar at St. Benedict’s, Sketty, to
celebrate the launch of ‘Making Everybody Welcome’.
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