CANADA, 08 March, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canada’s bishops have announced that this year’s National Week for Life and the Family will run from May 12-19, with the theme: “The Family: Facing life’s challenges together with Christ.”
“In promoting life and the family, the Bishops invite all Catholics to become witnesses to the Gospel of Life, and each family to be both a source of life and a school for life,” state the bishops in an online resource for the upcoming week.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has provided resources for making the week a success. These include a full-colour poster for promoting the week, prayer cards, suggestions for promoting the week before it begins, and a list of activities that can be done during the week.
The promotion and activity suggestions were prepared by the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF).
In particular the bishops call for the promotion of the National March for Life, which is to be held on May 9 in Ottawa. They also call for a promotion of “local pro-life marches or other events.”
“Promotion might involve extending an invitation to local pro-life organizations to host an information table for parishes and/or inviting members of local pro-life organizations to say a few words at weekend liturgies during one of the weeks between April 7 and May 5,” the bishops state.
The bishops also call for “short accessible quotations from the Scriptures and relevant Church documents relating to the supreme value and importance of human life and of the family” to be placed in parish bulletins.
In answer to the question about why life and the family should be celebrated, the bishops quote Pope Benedict: “The family has a natural vocation to promote life: it accompanies individuals as they mature and it encourages mutual growth and enrichment through caring and sharing.”
“The Christian family in particular serves as a seedbed for personal maturation according to the standards of divine love… It is in the family that peacemakers, tomorrow’s promoters of a culture of life and love, are born and nurtured.”
Find out more about National Week for Life and the Family here.