The Catholic Organization for Life and Family is calling on Christian families to “become contagious with hope and joy” in their annual message to families this year.
The organization, co-founded by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus, begins the message with an imaginary survey which finds that raising a child is rated as the world's most important job. They then posit the hope that “one day, society will acknowledge the essential contribution of its most fundamental unit – the family – and choose to offer more support to parents who want to spend more time and energy raising their children.”
The message quotes Pope Francis' consistent and insistent calls to “put Christ truly at the centre of our lives,” and to share the joy and hope that faith in Christ brings by supporting the primary vocation of the family: to promote life.
“The family is the place where one learns to love; it is the natural centre of human life. It is made up of faces, of persons who love, talk, sacrifice for others and defend life, especially of the most fragile, the weakest. It could be said, without exaggeration, that the family is the engine of the world and of history,” Pope Francis said at the 21st Assembly for the Pontifical Council for the Family in Rome on October 25, 2013.
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COLF director Michèle Boulva said that while the 2014 Message to Families is “a reflection on human dignity and the urgent need to form witnesses to Christ,” it is also an important resource that can be used as the basis for workshops for families, parishes, and friends who would like to deepen their reflection.
The preface to the workshop guide points out that the family is the privileged place where we should first encounter the face of love.
“It is where we learn to relate lovingly with those with whom we live and to see beyond human limitations to the dignity which is ours as children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus!”
“Today, more than ever,” COLF says, “Christian families are being called to allow the love that they share to overflow, to become contagious with hope and joy!”
The COLF 2014 Message to Families is available here. The workshop guide is available here.