There’s another world

The 7th World Meeting of Families, scheduled to take place in Milan in the coming days, is much more than a major ecclesial event. Moreover, the Meeting also has a strong civil, social and cultural connotation, as conveyed in the theme: “The family, work, holidays.” But the meeting is significant per se, as a global event. Families from world countries will come together, mutually welcoming one another, exchanging experiences with the families from Milan and from local communities. This major assembly, gathered around the Pope, expresses and celebrates the unity and the universality of the people of God. As relates to the theme, it should be said that the family, work and holidays don’t overlap. In fact, they fall within the same theme, namely, the interaction of these three values, fundamental for the lives of persons and of society as a whole. In the very opening chapter of the Bible, family, work and holiday are presented to us as three blessings, three gifts of God for a good life. In fact, happiness requires material and relational soundness, along with the quest for what is useful, encompassing time for rest, being together with others and with God.
Today it is ever more urgent to reflect on the family, work and festivity. Addressing these issues in a non-superficial manner can help overcome the crisis that is afflicting the Western world, a crisis that extends beyond the economic sphere. It is widely acknowledged that while on the one side there is a need for innovation, investments, and greater productivity, on the other, a well-balanced inter-generational exchange, entailing higher birth rates and emphasis on education are equally important. Sociological surveys show that sound families are committed in assuring savings, responsibility and efficiency, generous procreation and educational dedication. It is therefore in the interest of society to support the families, reconciling the needs of the family with the time for work, harmonizing maternity and profession, and helping large families.

Researches show that health, good family relations, relationships based on solidarity, along with mutual respect in the working environment and at community level, count more that income in assuring happiness. It is necessary to recover the meaning of the holiday, that it may not be a time of evasion and dispersion but rather a time to focus on fundamental values, namely, God, the Family, the Community, Friendship, Culture, Solidarity. Most of all, it is necessary to protect Sunday from the invasion of the market. Today, the centrality of Sunday is threatened by a relativistic culture which on the one side aims at crushing the human person on contemporariness, thus wiping away the quest for transcendence, on the other it upholds the view that given the ongoing times of crisis priority should be given to production and revenue efficiency, thus making it hard to understand that the need for holiday will never be erased since it is inscribed into the heart of man, and, in a much more significant way, it is inscribed in the heart of Christians who on Sunday celebrate the Easter of the Lord, which returns week by week.

“Without Sunday we cannot live”, the Abitene martyrs replied to the authorities of the Roman Empire, who asked the reason why they came together to celebrate festive liturgy. It is an urgency that is valid still today. The celebration of Sunday represents the calling to a dimension that extends beyond the ephemeral, while it is linked to the eternal. Holiday is the time of free bestowal, of play, of contemplation, of nature, of good relations, of the family. But notably it is most of a time for prayer, spirituality, for our relationship with God. Recovering the meaning of Sunday and of Festive days means to inject into the body in a state of crisis a beneficial antidote against individualism, subjectivism, social egoism, which are at the roots of all evils, i.e. abortion, separation, divorce, educational needs. Finally, the meeting in Milan is precious as it gives visibility to manifold positive realities. Also in Europe there are many exemplary families, large families by conscious decision. Notably, flourishing movements, forms of aggregation, networks between families are all praiseworthy, hope-conveying experiences. The meeting in Milan celebrates all the beauty, richness, and fruitfulness engendered by the “great mystery”: the family based on marriage.

Card. Ennio Antonelli – president of the Pontifical Council for the Family

(29 May 2012)