While we celebrated Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day with much joy in previous years, we recognise that the needs of many of the children in our school have changed. To ensure that our pastoral care is responsive to the needs of all our children, we have chosen, instead, to celebrate parents and guardians in a series of Family Day services.

One of the documents informing our approach is Pope Francis’ post-synodical Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL-The joy of love) on the pastoral care of families. While clearly stating the Church’s teaching, “pastors are to avoid judgements that do not take into account the complexity of various situations, and they are to be attentive, by necessity, to how people experience and endure distress because of their condition” (AL 79).

The Pope observes that we need, above all, to avoid a sterile juxtaposition between demands for change and the general application of abstract norms. He insists on concreteness, which is a key concept in the Exhortation. Citing Familiaris Consortio (The fellowship of the family), He states that “we do well to focus on concrete realities, since ‘the call and the demands of the Spirit resound in the events of history” (AL 31). If we fail to listen to reality, we cannot understand the needs of the present or the movements of the Spirit.

The Pope begins his reflections with the Holy Scriptures:

The Bible is full of families, births, love stories and family crises. This is true from its very first page, with the appearance of Adam and Eve’s family with all its burden of violence but also its enduring strength (cf. Gen 4) to its very last page, where we behold the wedding feast of the Bride and the Lamb (Rev 21:2,9). Jesus’ description of the two houses, one built on rock and the other on sand (cf. Mt 7:24-27), symbolises any number of family situations shaped by the exercise of their members’ freedom, for, as the poet says, “every home is a lampstand”.

REVD RAKGADI KHOBO
CHAPLAIN