Intervention of Mons. Joseph Jules ZEREY, Titular Archbishop of Damiata of the Greek-Melkites, Auxiliary and Protosyncellus of the Patriarchate of Antioch of the Greek-Melkites (JERUSALEM)

Why do many of our families emigrate? Why do they live half-heartedly, crushed by greed coming notably from media, the pressures coming from all sides, political, social and material as well as those coming from other professions of faith or other religions? Why have so many lost their call to live like the first Christians, who, with the Apostles, lived an evangelical life, centered on Christ in prayer and in sharing?
I strongly state that many of our “so-called Christian” families have a vital need for re-evangelization and to personally embrace the forgiveness and mercy of God earned by the passion, the death and the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
During the past forty years, we have all witnessed the Holy Spirit evoking a renewal in the Church from which new movements and communities were born that live the missionary dynamic such as the great Apostles and great Saints (which we know), who during the centuries knew how to evangelize the heart of the Church and of the world.
These past years in our Arab countries and in other countries, I have met several families who truly live their Christian faith despite the enormous difficulties in their daily lives. These families burning with the Charity of Christ bear their Crosses with faith and Hope against all Hope.
These families cannot hold and cannot be missionaries unless through a personal tie, a deep love for Christ strengthened by daily prayer as well as the support of small fraternities or parish communities meeting each week around the Word of God. These “small Cenacles” will allow them to live in a more intense way the Sunday Eucharist.
These families live the presence of the Risen Christ among them, which vivifies them through His Holy Spirit and leads them to the Father.
An international center for family spirituality will be built in Nazareth very soon. This center will be at the service of the local Church and the Universal Church. I ask that it may shine over all the cities of the Holy Land, to help families not only face their daily problems and difficulties, but especially to encourage these families to become true missionary families, true hearths of Charity and Light.

[00058-02.03] [IN036] [Original text: French]