Scottish Catholic Observer

The Holy Father made this request in a letter to the president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, which was released this week. In the letter he also called for Catholics to re-evaluate the balance between work and family in their lives.

The theme for the upcoming 7th World Meeting of Families is Family: Work and Celebration. The Holy Father’s letter reflected on these themes, and the appropriate balance of work and rest.

“Work and celebration are intimately connected in the life of families: they condition choices, influence relations between married couples and between parents and children, affect the relation of families with society and with the Church,” the Pope wrote. “Holy Scripture tells us that the family, work and the feast day are gifts and blessings of God to help us to live a fully human existence. Daily experience attests that the authentic development of the person includes the individual, familial, and communal dimension, activities and functional relationships, as well as openness to hope and to the Good without limits.”

The Pope also warned against the modern obsession with work that he said contributes ‘to the break-up of the family and the community and to the spreading of an individualistic lifestyle.’

“Thus it is necessary to promote reflection and efforts at reconciling the demands and the periods of work with those of the family and to recover the true meaning of the feast, especially on Sunday, the weekly Easter, the day of the Lord and the day of man, the day of the family, of the community and of solidarity,” he said.

Characterising the World Meeting of Families as a ‘privileged occasion to rethink work and celebration,’ Pope Benedict said he wished to see ‘valid initiatives at the parish, diocesan and national level’ celebrating the family ahead of the conference.