Pope Francis greets families in St. Peter’s Square before Mass for the World Meeting of Families 2022 on June 25, 2022 / Daniel Ibanez/CNAAt the Saturday Mass for the World Meeting of Families, Pope Francis emphasized that Christ’s passion and death set us free from the bonds of selfishness so that we can love one another more effectively.
“We all have access to freedom. The pope emphasized on June 25 that all people are born with various sorts of interior and outward training, especially with a tendency to selfishness, to making oneself the center of attention and being only interested in our own interests. This is the servitude that Christ has delivered us from.
The Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, a division of the Vatican that collaborated with the Diocese of Rome to co-organize the 10th World Meeting of Families, was presided over by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who also gave the sermon at the Mass.
The event’s topic was “Family Love: A Vocation and a Path to Holiness,” and about 2,000 families participated.
Francis discussed a line from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians in his homily: “Brothers and sisters: Christ freed us from slavery, so maintain your resolve and resist the urge to return to servitude.
Brothers and sisters, you were called to freedom. However, resist the temptation to indulge the flesh and instead utilize this freedom to serve one another.
One of the most valued ideas and aspirations of our time, according to the pope, is freedom. Everyone aspires to be liberated from their conditioning and restrictions, as well as from any form of “prison,” whether it be social, cultural, or economic.
The greatest freedom of all, however—internal freedom—is lacking in so many people.
In addition, he pointed out that St. Paul teaches that the freedom provided by God is not the world’s self-centered freedom but rather freedom “directed to love, so that, as the Apostle tells us again today, “by love you may become slaves of one another.”
“All of you married couples, in building your family, made, with the help of Christ’s grace, a courageous decision: to use freedom not for yourselves, but to love the persons that God has put at your side,” Pope Francis said.
He advised parents “not to shield our children from the slightest hardship and suffering, but to try to communicate to them a passion for life, the passion to arouse in them the desire to discover their vocation and embrace the great mission that God has in mind for them.”
“Nothing,” he said, “can be more encouraging for children than to see their parents experiencing marriage and family life as a mission, demonstrating fidelity and patience despite difficulties, moments of sadness and times of trial.
“Don’t ever forget this: the family is the first place where you learn to love,” he emphasized.
“In praising the beauty of the family, we also feel compelled, today more than ever, to defend the family,” Pope Francis said. “Let us not allow the family to be poisoned by the toxins of selfishness, individualism, today’s culture of indifference and culture of waste, and as a result lose its very DNA, which is the spirit of acceptance and service.”