On March 19, 2021, the Church will celebrate five years since the publication of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia on the beauty and joy of love in the family. On the same day, Pope Francis will launch the Year “Amoris Laetitia Family”, which will conclude on June 26, 2022, on the occasion of the 10th World Meeting of Families in Rome with the Holy Father.
The Year “Amoris Laetitia Family” is an initiative of Pope Francis, which aims to reach every family around the world through several spiritual, pastoral and cultural proposals that can be implemented within Parishes, Dioceses, universities, and family associations.
The family (as the domestic church) deserves a year of celebrations, so that it can be placed at the center of commitment and care from every pastoral and ecclesial reality.
Goals
- Share the content of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia more widely, to let “people experience the Gospel of the family as a joy that fills hearts and lives” (AL 200). A family that discovers and experiences both the joy of having a gift, and of being a gift for the Church and society, “can become a light in the darkness of the world” (AL 66). And the world today certainly needs this light!
- Proclaim that the sacrament of marriage is a gift and contains in itself a transforming power of human love. For this purpose, pastors and families must journey together with a sense of co-responsibility and pastoral complementarity between the different vocations in the Church (cf. AL 203).
- Enable families to become active agents of the family apostolate. To this end, “an effort at evangelization and catechesis inside the family” (AL 200) is required, since a family of disciples turns into a missionary family.
- Make young people aware of the importance of formation in the truth of love and in the gift of self, with initiatives dedicated to them.
- Broaden the vision and scope of the family apostolate including married couples, children, young people, the elderly and situations of family fragility.
