Pope Leo invites lay faithful to join in mission to families
By Christopher Wells
In an age “marked by a growing search for spirituality,” the Church must be “farsighted in discerning the challenges of today’s world and in nurturing the desire for faith present in the heart of every man and woman,” Pope Leo said on Monday.
In a Message to a seminar focused on “Evangelizing with the Families of Today and Tomorrow,” the Holy Father emphasized the need to reach out especially to those families that are “spiritually most distant from us,” who for various reasons do not feel involved or who feel excluded from the Church, but that nonetheless desire to be part of a community.
How many of these people, the Pope asked “simply do not hear the invitation to encounter God?”
Instead, Pope Leo worried that “an increasingly widespread ‘privatization’ of faith often prevents these brothers and sisters from knowing the richness and gifts of the Church.”
Church called to be a 'fisher' of humanity
Too often, he continued, in searching for happiness and meaning in their lives, they end up relying on “false footholds” based on illusory lifestyles often promoted by modern media – potentially good means that can “prove harmful when used to convey misleading messages.”
The Church, on the other hand, is called precisely to be a “‘fisher’ of humanity, to save it from the waters of evil and death through an encounter with Christ.”
Faith, the Pope said, “is primarily a response to Christ’s love,” and encounter with a person. Too often, he lamented, Christians have forgotten this truth, and presented Christianity as a set of rules, “a moralistic, burdensome, and unappealing tradition.”
While it is primarily the responsibility of Bishops “to cast their nets into the sea and become ‘fishers of families’,” the lay faithful, too, are called to participate in this mission, becoming fishers of couples, young people, and men and women of every age and circumstance, so that all may encounter Jesus.
“I ask you, then,” the Pope said, “to join in the work of the whole Church in seeking out those who no longer come to us, in learning how to walk with them and to help them embrace the faith, and become, in turn, ‘fishers’ of other families.”
He encouraged the faithful not to be discouraged but to be open to “new ways of seeing things and different ways of acting,” which are necessary to respond to the challenges of each new generation.
After thanking participants for their work, Pope Leo prayed that the Holy Spirit would guide them in their discernment as they strive to support and promote the Church’s ministry to families.
