Did you see Pope Francis on T.V. when he came to visit the United States last week. You should have seen how excited all the young men from our Seminary in Boston were to see the Pope. We went down to Washington D.C. to see him and some of them got very close to him as he was walking down the aisle at the National Shrine.
And today the Pope is back in Rome, pressing over the first day of the Synod on the Family. He has called several hundred Bishops and all kinds of experts to discuss the challenges to the Family in our day and age.
You know the importance of the family for living out God’s call to love. The love so many of you showed as a mother or a father lives on in your sons and daughters. The faith you passed on to them and the lessons you taught them have made the world a better place and made your children more holy, cooperators with God in bringing love to all who need it.
You know what it is like for a bride or groom to leave their father and mother
and cling to their spouse that the two of them might become one flesh.
You know what it is like to be a “wife…like a fruitful vine…your children like olive plants around your table.”
You know what it is like to “see your children's children.”
So pray for the Pope and all those Bishops over the next few weeks, that they may appreciate and protect and strengthen those values which you have lived for most of your lives. Pray also for all married couples, young and old, that God’s love for us may shine forth in them, just as it has in you and your families for all these many years.
