(June 04, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday brought curtains down on the 7th
World Meeting of Families in Milan, northern Italy, celebrating an open-air Mass at
Bresso Park for about 1 million faithful from 153 countries. The May 30 – June 3
international Church event had as its theme, “The Family: Work and Celebration".
The Pope’s concluding three days there was meant to boost the Catholic Church’s support
for the basic cell of society. In his homily at the Mass, the Pope pointed how the
three dimensions of our lives, namely, family, work and celebration, must be brought
into a harmonious balance " of " work schedules with family demands, professional
life with motherhood, work with celebration", because it "is important for building
up a society with a human face", which "always gives priority to the logic of being
over that of having: the first builds up, the second ends up destroying."
The
Holy Father said the focus on making money undermines families by creating an unjust
society. Such thinking, he said, “creates ferocious competition, strong inequalities,
degradation of the environment'' and reduces family relationships ``to fragile convergences
of individual interests.'' The supreme model of a family, the Pope explained is the
Holy Trinity, saying it is not only the Church that is called to be the image of One
God in Three Persons, but also the family, based on marriage between man and woman.
This identity of the family has fruitful consequences for families themselves and
for society. Pope Benedict did not forget the pain of divorced and separated couples
and pledged his and the Church’s support in their struggle. “I encourage you to remain
united to your communities, and I earnestly hope that your dioceses are developing
suitable initiatives to welcome and accompany you," he told them.
Meeting some
families at a rally late Saturday night, the pope recalled his own childhood, which
he likened to his vision of “heaven” - a house filled with music, big Sunday lunches
and shared liturgical readings to strengthen the family faith. Responding to a young
Vietnamese girl about what heaven could possibly be like, he spoke about the time
of his childhood. The pope also remembered those in Italy’s northern region of Emilia-Romagna,
where 24 died in two quakes just over a week apart last month. On Sunday the Pope
also pledged €500,000 to families in severe need in the quake zone.