Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Seul (Agenzia Fides) - It was a week of special prayer of invocation and intercession for the family. A time in which the Church, looking at the Holy Family as a model, entrusted all the needs and problems of families in Korea to the Lord. The Week for the Sanctification of the Family held from 30 December, the Feast of the Holy Family, and celebrated all over the country, concluded with prayer vigils, Masses and adoration of the Eucharist. The faithful reflected on the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI 's message for World Peace Day “The human family: a community of peace”.
In a message for the occasion with the title "For authentic communication in the Family”, the president of the Korean Bishops' Commission for the Family, Bishop Paul Hwang Cheol-soo, said “working to promote family unity through dialogue can be an important way of helping families solve difficulties”. He recalled that the Week for the Sanctification of the Family was launched to “help families heal their relationships, through forgiveness, reconciliation, and start a new year as a real community of love”.
The Bishop said “ Every family must strive to become holy. The Lord Jesus lived in a family for thirty years and he demonstrated that ordinary family life is a path to holiness”.
The message denounces attacks on the family such as abortion, divorce, low birth rate, difficult communications, separation of families. He encourages Christian families to “to be watchful to prevent the generation gap and materialism which threatens to invade the family”.
The text continues: “Families can be fully united if parents and children pray together. When there is dialogue and prayer for unity and love in the family, the will of God is done as it is in heaven”.
The Bishop concludes: “In the new year families should strive to be more aware of their responsibility to live the unity willed by God and to live in the family a dialogue of love”. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 9/1/2008 righe 28 parole 297)
