Vatican’s weekend celebration of family

October 25, 2013 - The Vatican is staging a two-day festival of the family this weekend in the Vatican in celebration of the Catholic Church’s Year of Faith that concludes next month. The theme of the Day for the Family, organized by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family is, “Family, Experience the Joy of Faith.” Saturday, an estimated 150,000 faithful will join the Pilgrimage of Families to the tomb of St. Peter, and in the evening Pope Francis will celebrate the family with the participants in St. Peter’s Square that will include the Profession of Faith, reflections, music and witness. The event will climax with a solemn Mass in St. Peter’s Square by the Pope Sunday morning which will conclude with the ‘angelus’ prayer. Among the initiatives for the family festival, the Council has encouraged children between 3-12 years of age to send a drawing or painting of their family to Pope Francis. Teenagers have been asked to represent their idea of the pilgrimage sharing their photographs on the social media of the Pontifical Council. By way of promoting talent in families, young singer-songwriters and performers have been asked to present their work on the theme of the family. (Source: Vatican)