Celebrating Family!

Family Love: a Vocation and a Path to Holiness is the theme for the X Meeting of Families to be held in Rome the end of June,2022, culminating a year-long celebration of the family, declared by Pope Francis on Dec. 20, 2020.

If this is news to you, and you are only just now finding out we are completing a Year of the Family, just recall for a minute, what it was like in December 2020. You probably were unable to attend church together as a family, or even gather with extended family in your own homes to celebrate the birth of Our Lord. Zoom and Christmas are two words I hope never to hear in the same sentence again. It is understandable you may have missed the memo declaring the Year of the Family, busy as you were, you know, actually living your vocation, under entirely new rules and uncharted territory on this Path to Holiness.

Besides, most of us are living the reality of this “theme” day in day out, year in year out. Opportunities for holiness tend to present themselves daily in family life, without declaration, or even invitation So maybe the Year of the Family is a more important reminder to those that serve and minister to families, then to the families themselves.

Appropriately enough, on the heels of this June Meeting of the Families, is the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, which will be celebrated on the fourth Sunday of July, near the Feasts of Saints Anne and Joachim, and THAT, kicks off National NFP Awareness Week, which is July 24th-30th in 2022.

I think I am safe in predicting that World Day for Grandparents will find itself celebrated in many more church communities that weekend, then National NFP Awareness Week. After all, it is a feel-good day! Who doesn’t like to celebrate sweet Grandmas and Grandpas!

Our church communities may, however, need to be reminded of the importance of celebrating National NFP Awareness Week! And YOU may be the only person to alert them to it (even, or maybe especially, if you are a grandparent!).

“Grandparents are the ring linking generations to transmit to young people the experience of life and faith.” Pope Francis, 2021

The theme for this year’s National NFP Awareness Week is Called to the Joy of Love. Living the Joy of Love in marriage, through NFP, builds and inspires virtues like generosity, respect, faithfulness, and other centeredness, and has a tendency to be the impetus for seeking to live God’s will in all areas of our lives. The Joy of Love begins with respecting and embracing God’s plan for married love, and fully embracing our vocation in this way ripples throughout all our relationships, including the respect, love and care we show our eldest family members.

It struck me that the Year of Family Meeting in Rome will be held in the Paul VI Meeting Room. It is my hope that the words of Pope Paul VI echo in the hearts of those gathered in this chamber, infusing in them an understanding that the Path to Holiness is rooted in living God’s design for love and life:

“In preserving intact the whole moral law of marriage, the Church is convinced that she is contributing to the creation of a truly human civilization.” Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, 1968

We serve families, from the youngest to the eldest members, when all marriages are Called to the Joy of Love. Nothing makes a grandparent happier, on World Grandparents Day, or any other day, then to see their children and grandchildren joyfully living their marriage and family life, in faith and holiness! I know nothing would make this Grandma happier!

As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the world in which we live.” Pope John Paul II, Perth (Australia), Nov. 30, 1986

Some NFP WEEK 2022 Resources

Include Grandparents in NFP Week

Bulletin Inserts and BlurbsMedia Kit

Media Kit

Teaching of the Catholic Church

And More