#WMOF22: The family, an ordinary and attainable way of holiness

The third and final day of the Pastoral Theological Congress of the 10th World Meeting of Families began with a Eucharistic adoration intended to offer the couples present an opportunity to live out their conjugal spirituality more profoundly. Moments like this are precious for realizing how family love is truly a vocation and a way to holiness.

It was precisely holiness that was at the center of the reflection of the day, which started with the testimony of Francesco Beltrame Quattrocchi, and ended with the presentation of the volume "Holiness in Families around the World" published for the occasion by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life (LEV, 205pp). The volume, which was given as a gift to all participants, was prepared with the purpose of offering to family apostolate a practical and yet profound path to make known the beauty of the vocation to marriage and family as a way to holiness.

Giovanni and Elisabetta Scifoni presented the book, emphasizing that "the life of the saint is the opposite of that of the hero. The hero is someone who accomplishes a great feat through courage, talent, ability. The hero tells you by his work 'I am not like you.' The saint is the opposite, he tells you "I am exactly like you, I am a poor man like you, I have the same doubts, fears, weaknesses as you."

Speaking of the eight stories presented in the volume, ordinary and marked by pains and failures, but out of which an accessible path to holiness is discerned, spouses Scifoni concluded that "all these married couples, these courageous, humble, small and fragile men and women, tell us that out of any destruction, out of any horror, God can create a Holy Family of Nazareth."

The Holy Mass presided over by the Holy Father in St. Peter's Square at 6:30 p.m. will conclude the 10th World Meeting of Families and also the "Amoris Laetitia Family Year." At the end of the Mass, delegates and families from all over the world will receive the missionary mandate.