By Seàn-Patrick Lovett

Months of preparation went into creating the event considered one of the highlights of the World Meeting of Families 2018: the Festival of Families that was celebrated in Dublin’s Croke Park Stadium on Saturday evening together with some 70,000 people. Even the stage design reflected an ideal “circle of encounter” where families could sit close to Pope Francis while sharing their testimonies and enjoying the performances.

Talent and testimony

The talent was provided by some of Ireland’s best performers and musicians: a 1,000-voice choir, a 50-piece orchestra, and over 700 dancers from the best Irish dance schools across the country, as well as international artists like The Riverdance Troupe, American jazz singer, Dana Masters, and Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli. 

The testimony came from five families representing Ireland, Canada, India, Iraq, and Africa. All shared a common theme of how their families had provided them with hope, love and support during the most challenging moments of their lives. Their testimonies focused on themes of forgiveness and hope in the family, the importance of grandparents, and even the role of social media and technology in family life.

A good cup of tea

When the Pope addressed the gathering, he described it as “a family celebration of thanksgiving to God for who we are: one family in Christ, spread throughout the world”. Pope Francis’ speech was filled with references to his Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, on the joy of love.

“God wants every family to be a beacon of the joy of His love in our world”, said the Pope. “All of us are called to find, in the family, our fulfilment in love”, he continued, and immediately qualified his statement by adding that “No one said this would be easy”. 

That’s when Pope Francis compared building relationships within the family to the most familiar of all Irish pastimes: brewing a pot of tea. “It is easy to bring the water to a boil”, he said, “but a good cup of tea takes time and patience. It needs to brew!”. In the same way, it is Jesus who, every day, “warms us with His love and lets it penetrate our whole being”, he said.

Three small words

“Sorry”. “Please”. “Thanks”: these are the three small words that Pope Francis often suggests as antidotes to the tensions that can arise within the family. “There is no such thing as a perfect family”, he reminded his audience. “Without the grace of forgiveness, families can grow sick and gradually collapse”. On the contrary, said the Pope, “small and simple acts of forgiveness, renewed each day, are the foundation upon which a solid Christian family life is built”.

Social media pros and cons

Responding to the testimony of a family from India, the Pope spoke about the positive use of social media as a way to build, what he called, “a web of friendships, solidarity and mutual support”. Social media, he said, “can be beneficial if used with moderation and prudence”. While families can “connect through the internet and draw nourishment from it”, the Pope warned of overusing social media to the extent that it risks “imprisoning us in a virtual reality” that isolates us from “the very relationships that challenge us to grow to our full potential in communion with others”.

Families that pray together stay together

Although he didn’t mention Fr Patrick Peyton by name, the “good Irish priest” quoted by Pope Francis, was most likely recognizable to his audience. The families that are united by prayer, are able to support other families that live in challenging and difficult situations, he said. Again referring to his Exhortation on love and the family, the Pope confirmed that it is “the love of Christ that renews all things” and that “makes possible marriage and conjugal love marked by fidelity, indissolubility, unity and openness to life”.

In this regard, the Pope thanked another family, with their ten children, for their “witness of love and faith”. It is in “mutual self-giving”, said Pope Francis, that spouses are able to become “one flesh” and to “open their hearts to those in need of love, especially the lonely, the abandoned, the weak and the vulnerable, so often discarded by our throw-away culture”. 

The Pope also reserved a special word for the older generation: “A society that does not value grandparents is a society that has no future”, he said. Grandparents are the ones who teach us “the meaning of conjugal and parental love”, he continued. Which is why it’s a “big mistake not to ask the elderly about their experience, or to think that talking to them is a waste of time”.

God’s dream

Pope Francis’ final request to the families gathered in Croke Park Stadium, and to all those participating in the event via media platforms around the world, was to “help God’s dream come true”. By witnessing to the Gospel, he concluded, “you can help to draw all God’s children closer together, so that they can grow in unity and learn what it is for the entire world to live in peace as one great family”.

By Francesca Merlo

An important part of the programme for Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland for the World Meeting of Families, was the meeting he himself requested in order to listen to engaged and married couples. During the question and answer encounter at Dublin’s Saint Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, the Pope told those present that “our world needs a revolution of love”. “Let that revolution begin with you and your families”, he said.

A family tree without roots

Pope Francis stressed the importance of this love, saying that we must return to and take care of our family roots. “No family can grow if it forgets its roots”, he said. These roots transmit the generational experiences that teach us life and love. “Children will not grow in love if they do not learn how to converse with their grandparents”, Pope Francis said.

By Robin Gomes

Pope Francis on Saturday called on the international community to create a global family of nations and peoples with a sense of unity and solidarity, especially with the weakest of our brothers and sisters. While calling for the protection of the vulnerable, he also denounced the “grave scandal” of clerical sexual abuse of young people by members of the Church in Ireland as “repellent crimes”.   

The Pope’s call came in his address to Irish authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps at Dublin Castle, part of his 2-day visit to Dublin, Saturday and Sunday, on the occasion of the World Meeting of Families which is taking place in the Irish capital, August 21-26.

By Lydia O’Kane

Just a stones-throw  from Dublin Castle is the area known as the Liberties, the oldest part of the city. Situated in this quarter is the biggest Viking site outside of Denmark, known as Wood Key. Keep walking across the bridge and over the river Liffey, you reach Dublin’s inner city. This is an area where the faith lives and breathes. It’s along these streets that the bunting and Papal flags flutter in the wind against the façade of the houses.

Vibrant faith
 

St Michan’s Church on Halston Street  is one of Churches taking part in the World Meeting of Families Pilgrim walk. It’s a vibrant parish which combines social media and parish notice boards to spread the faith. Many here remember fondly the visit of Pope John Paul II, and groups from the Church will be heading to the nearby Phoenix Park to see Pope Francis.

Charity in action
 

Just down the road is the Capuchin Day Centre which has for the past 40 years been welcoming and helping the homeless and needy of Dublin. It’s all hands on deck here as the Centre prepares to greet its special guest. One man is washing the floor of the canteen, while others put out chairs and arrange tables, watched over by a statue of St Francis.

In the midst of all this is the man who has devoted his to life to the poor of Dublin, the Centre’s founder, Capuchin Friar Brother Kevin  Crowley.  He looks on calmly as the flurry of activity continues around him, and chats to those who make up the team here.  Br Kevin is looking forward to the visit of Pope Francis, but notes that he sees it as just another day in the life of the Centre, adding that there’s no point getting stressed.

When Pope Francis comes to this area on Saturday, he will see for himself the strength of the faith that permeates here; the benevolence towards one's neighbour, and the true meaning of Christianity in action.

By Lydia O’Kane

On the 21^st August 1879 fifteen people in the village of Knock in the West of Ireland witnessed an Apparition that would change their lives. For two hours in the pouring rain they watched as Our Lady, St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, a Lamb and cross on an altar at the gable wall of the Parish Church appeared to them.

The villagers recalled seeing a beautiful vision of Mary with a white cloak and crown while St Joseph was also wearing white while standing on the right of the Blessed Virgin.

Following the apparition an ecclesiastical Commission of inquiry was established  that same year which found  the testimonies of those who witnessed the scene to be sound and trustworthy.

Nearly 140 years on from  that well documented event, the place of the apparitions is now a National Shrine and Basilica honouring Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland which welcomes thousands of pilgrims every year.

Pope John Paul II at Knock

One such pilgrim was the first Pope to come to Ireland, St John Paul II who visited the Marian Shine one hundred years after the apparition on a rainy autumn day in 1979.“ In words to the  villagers of Knock and the people of Ireland, he said, “Queen of Ireland, Mary Mother of the heavenly and earthly Church, a Mháthair Dé, keep Ireland true to her spiritual tradition and her Christian heritage. Help her to respond to her historic mission of bringing the light of Christ to the nations, and so making the glory of God be the honour of Ireland.”

For the Rector of the Shrine, Fr Richard Gibbons , the apparition scene links in very well with the upcoming World Meeting of Families which will take place from August 21^st to 26^th and describes Pope Francis’ visit to the Shrine as a “moment of personal devotion” both to Our Lady and to St Joseph.”

He also calls the apparition “unique”, adding that ”it’s one of the most sophisticated and complex witnessed”.

Knock Shrine today

Over the last few year this National Shrine has undergone a radical overhaul that has seen a project called “Witness to Hope” being launched” which includes faith renewal and retreat programmes throughout the year.

Asked about what pilgrims experience when they come to Knock, Fr Gibbons says that the feedback they get is that, “people want that sense of peace, but also a sense of where they can engage in a very normal way with renewing their spirituality and their faith”.

In addition to the day to day activities, the Shrine has its own archive which documents events that occurred at the time.  In a heartwarming story Fr Gibbons recalls that only recently the remains of the youngest visionary John Curry were found in New York in a paupers grave in Long Island. With the help of Cardinal Timothy Dolan his remains were transferred to Old St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan.

As the people of Knock remember  the 1979 Papal visit and await the arrival of Pope Francis, the Rector comments that the visit of a Pope  gives a sense of what we belong to, that the Church is bigger than ourselves, it’s bigger than Ireland and that we are part of a worldwide community…” The visit, he says, “gives a lift”… adding that, “we hope that Knock will play an enormous role in the renewal of the Church in the country as well, and the renewal of faith.”