The bond between the family and the Christian community was the topic addressed by Pope Francis today at the General Audience in St. Peter's Square. If "the great events of worldly powers are written in history books, and stay there," the story of human affections, the Pope said, "is written directly into the heart of God" and "endures forever. This is—he continued—the place of life and of faith. The family is the place of our —irreplaceable, indelible— initiation to this story."
Francis said that it is "indispensable to revive the alliance between the family and the Christian community. We could say—he continued—that the family and the parish are the two places in which the communion of love that has its ultimate source in God himself is realized. A Church that truly lives according to the Gospel can have no other form than that of a welcoming home, whose doors are always wide open," otherwise "they should not be called churches, but rather museums." The Pope considers the alliance between the Christian community and the family "crucial in the battle against the 'centers' of ideological, financial and political power. Do we place our hopes in these centers of power? No! but in centers of love! Our hope is in these centers of love."
To succeed in this venture, the families have to take the initiative and feel responsible for bringing their precious gifts to the community, while the latter will have to "overcome excessively directive and functional attitudes, and foster inter-personal dialogue as well as mutual knowledge and esteem."
