Rome (Italy). On 2 July 2021 Pope Francis, through a video message, presented the 10th World Meeting of Families, which will be held in Rome from 22 to 26 June 2022 on the theme “Family love: vocation and way of holiness”.
In the video message, the Pope says, “After the postponement of a year due to the pandemic, the desire to meet again is great.” The event has been postponed for a year due to the pandemic and will have a new formula that will allow greater involvement of families in the ecclesial community. “The meeting will take on a multi-centric and widespread form, favoring the involvement of diocesan communities from all over the world. Rome will be the main venue, with some delegates of the family pastoral who will participate in the Festival of Families, the Pastoral Congress, and the Holy Mass, which will be broadcast all over the world.”
Pope Francis invites each Diocese to be the center of a local meeting for their families, to plan initiatives based on the theme, using the official symbols that the Diocese of Rome is preparing: “I ask you to be lively, active, creative, to organize yourselves with families, in harmony with what will take place in Rome. ”
The 10th World Meeting of Families is organized by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life and by the Diocese of Rome, on the sixth anniversary of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia and four years after the promulgation of Gaudete et Exsultate, to highlight family love as a vocation and way of holiness, this event is the culmination of the year “Amoris Laetitia Family” which, through initiatives and formative moments, invites us to rediscover the educational value of the family unit.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life, highlights the importance of involving families, “Over the years, this important ecclesial event has seen an ever-increasing participation of families. The thousands of people who participated in the most recent editions, with the richness of their languages, cultures, and experiences, were an eloquent sign of the beauty of the family for the Church and for all humanity. It is necessary to continue on this path, trying to involve a greater number of families in this wonderful initiative.”
Cardinal Vicar Angelo De Donatis underlines that the event is a pastoral opportunity to walk in synodality, putting the family at the center: “It is a question of seizing a precious and unique opportunity to restart family ministry with renewed missionary enthusiasm and creativity, starting from the indications given to us by the Holy Father in the exhortation Amoris Laetitia, that is, with the involvement of spouses, families, and pastors together. ”
With a joint note from the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life and the Vicariate of Rome, the logo, was also presented, visible on the YouTube Channel of the Diocese of Rome
The logo of the 10th World Meetings of Families
It takes up the elliptical shape of the Bernini colonnade in St. Peter’s Square, an identifying place of the Catholic Church, in the original meaning of the welcoming and inclusive embrace of the Mother Church of Rome and its Bishop to men and women of all times.
The human figures found under the dome just mentioned, represent husband, wife, children, grandparents, and grandchildren. They want to recall the image of the Church as a “family of families” proposed by Amoris Laetitia in which “The experience of love in families is a perennial source of strength for the life of the Church.” (Al 88)
The cross of Christ emerges towards the sky and the walls seem almost supported by families, living stones of the ecclesial construction. On the left side, on the line of the colonnade, the presence of a family in the position of the statues of the Saints placed on the columns of the square, reminds us that the vocation to holiness is a possible goal for everyone and that it is possible to live holiness in ordinary life. It also indicates all non-Catholic families, far from the faith and outside the Church, who look at the ecclesial event that is taking place from the outside.
The figures on the right, moving outwards, are outgoing families, witnesses of an open, non-self-referential Church. They go in search of other families to share the experience of God’s mercy.
The predominant colors, yellow and red, are a reference to the symbolic colors of the city of Rome, a graphic trait that wants to express the bond with the community.
Source: http://www.laityfamilylife.va
