This coming Wednesday (October 21) at 7:00 p.m., we will have a panel discussion entitled “Families Reaching Out to Families: A Conversation about Family Life.”  I am grateful that my friends Cathie and Tony, Claire, Corey and Cathy, and Corey-Anne and Cal, who represent a diversity of family configurations, will enter into dialogue with us about where they meet God in their family, why belonging to the church is important to their family, and what we as church can do to reach out with greater sensitivity to people in their life situation.

Last week, I was in Corner Brook, Newfoundland representing our archdiocese at the Canadian Federation of Presbyteral Councils.  Our guest speaker was 32-year old Leah Perrault, wife and mother of three young children, and Director of Pastoral Services in the diocese of Saskatoon.  In her reflection on our role as priests in the pastoral care of families, one thing she said really hit home: “We have all heard what ‘ideal’ families are supposed to look like.  But what we need is help in finding God in our real families, however messy they are.” Finding God in the mess – a challenge for all our families! 

At a prayer vigil held in St. Peter’s Square the night before the start of the Synod on the Family, Pope Francis spoke these inspired words: “Let us pray that the Synod will show how the experience of marriage and family is rich and humanly fulfilling. May the Synod acknowledge, esteem, and proclaim all that is beautiful, good and holy about that experience. May it embrace situations of vulnerability and hardship: war, illness, grief, wounded relationships, and brokenness, which create distress, resentment and separation. May it remind these families, and every family, that the Gospel is always “good news” which enables us to start over. From the treasury of the Church’s living tradition may the Fathers draw words of comfort and hope for families called in our own day to build the future of the ecclesial community and the world. (…)

To understand the family today, we need to enter into the mystery of the family of Nazareth, into its daily life, with their problems and their simple joys, a life marked by serene patience amid adversity, respect for others, a humility which is freeing and which flowers in service, a life of fraternity rooted in the sense that we are all members of one body.  The family is a place where evangelical holiness is lived out in the most ordinary conditions. The family is a place of discernment, where we learn to recognize God’s plan for our lives and to embrace it with trust. It is a place of gratuitousness, of fraternal presence and solidarity, a place where we learn to step out of ourselves and accept others, to forgive and to be forgiven.”

So let us be thankful for the gift of families, and let us pray that the family – that all families – may be blessed and strengthened. Amen!