MARFAM FAMILY WEEKLY E-NEWSLETTER 11 JUNE 2025
It’s been a busy time for the last few weeks, from the death of Pope Francis, Easter, Laudato Si week, Christian unity week and certainly listening carefully to Pope Leo and his beautiful liturgies and reports of meetings e.g. the Jubilee of Families at the end of May. Many other jubilees are held week by week in Rome, but I feel sad that I don’t hear too much locally about the jubilee year, except that we do see the logo featured here, there and everywhere. Families as Signs of Hope for the world, is Marfam’s Jubilee response by our actions and through our relationships. Is the local Church aware?
A recent saying from Pope Leo is “Faith is above all a response to a gaze of love. The greatest mistake we can make as Christians is, in the words of Saint Augustine, ‘to presume that the grace of Christ consists in His example and not in the gift of His person.’” So for the Pope’s Prayer network in June he has chosen the theme “Let us pray that each one of us might find consolation in a personal relationship with Jesus, and from his Heart, learn to have compassion on the world,” On the Solemnity of Pentecost, the Pope noted that the Holy Spirit has the power to bring peace to our hearts and our war-torn world. He said. “May there be, above all, peace in hearts: only a peaceful heart can spread peace—in families, in society, and in international relations.” The also noted that the Risen Christ’s Spirit can open paths of reconciliation wherever there is war.
So with Father’s Day and Youth Day coming up in the next few days let us take these hopes and ideals into families with June’s theme CHILDREN BELONG IN FAMILIES. And I add for this week, AND DADS TOO.
In the last few weeks, especially of course because of Child Protection week in SA, the media has reported quite widely on child abuse, neglect and abandonment. It is reported that 3 out of 4 children experience violence at the hand of families and caregivers at some time. Beyond the family children – mainly girls – are raped, but boys also experience sexual abuse. Children are murdered and kidnapped for ransom, or even sold as in the tragic case where Joshlin Smith’s mother and colleagues have been found guilty of selling the little girl.
Daily Maverick has focused on the topic of CHILDHOOD IN CRISIS from many different angles. In response early Child Development is noted, but Positive Parenting skills development and Fatherhood promotion need specific emphasis. A Family Focus rather than on women/mothers or children alone is necessary. MARFAM’s booklet BECOMING ECO-FRIENDLY FAMILIES – in an article FIX FAMILIES FIRST suggests that dealing with the environmental crisis by involving families in choosing together and acting together benefits family members and the environment. Ideally all family ages and particularly the fatherly presence benefit their family unity and the environment greatly. As is well known biological fathers are too often absent from families, a serious loss. However “social fathering” by another father figure does play a role which should be appreciated and honoured at this time too.
Father’s Day on Sunday 15th June can be a jolly, happy occasion making a dad feel special and loved. The typical Father’s Day gift used to be socks, hankies or alcohol. Today it can be more difficult to find that little time or small gift to show love and appreciation.
Youth Day on 16th is a different special commemorative occasion. Like dads youth are surely greatly in need for love, encouragement and support as families and society remember the efforts and sacrifices the 1976 youth made. They took on a responsibility to address injustice, that should rightly have been their parents’. 1976 Youth are now parents or very likely grandparents to the youth of 2025. A time to talk, share past and present needs that might well include reconciliation and peace in managing father-child relationships.
Stories of Pain and Hope. The Parenting Circle
Pope Leo’s plea to the Holy Spirit for peace and reconciliation does go beyond small families and is most necessary for the places in our world where conflict and wars are destroying the small and the greater family of society. Ukraine and Gaza are much in the picture and in his mind. Is it not clear from all the visuals that men, who are fathers, are mostly active in planning and executing the often horrific acts of combat? Women and children are often noted as victims, but very large numbers of men suffer and die too.
On the topic of dialogue and reconciliation herewith is a real example from the communities in the Holy Land.
Pax Christi International https://paxchristi.net/ was founded in 1945, in the dying days of WW II, to promote peace and reconciliation at various levels, political, institutional and social. It is active in all continents and many countries, in SA at the Denis Hurley Peace Institute.
In its report it is stated. “On June 5th Pax Christi International had the profound honour in Brussels of supporting the Parents Circle – Families Forum (PCFF) in spreading their powerful message of reconciliation and hope.” This peace initiative founded 20 years ago based in Israel and the Palestinian territory is made up of around 800 Israeli and Palestinian parents who have lost a family member due to the ongoing conflict. They meet across the divide, to dialogue, share stories of pain and hope, to offer support to one another, while promoting peace and reconciliation versus revenge,
Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan, two bereaved fathers and courageous peace advocates from the Forum, one a Jew and one a Palestinian each shared his story of anger, grief and loss at the killing of their young daughters by “the enemy” already years before the current Gaza war. This led them to join the peace campaign and after many years they are still speaking out about the urgency of bringing peace to the land they are remain destined to share. The only answer according to Bassam is Respect, for each other on the way to understanding and co-existence.
The PCFF has also begun a Youth initiative built around dialogue for peace with youth and young adults from the Jewish and Palestinian communities. It includes sharing and dialogue meetings, camps, travelling abroad as youth peace ambassadors and providing opportunities for Israeli and Palestinian youth to meet, dialogue, listen and share.
Another message on the urgency of the Israeli situation has come from the Johannesburg Jesuit Institute which forwarded a Christian ecumenical message from churches in the Holy Land, “A Jerusalem Voice, calling for a just peace.”
In a world of war and violence can we ask, “Do Children and Dads belong in Families?” The Parenting Circle message of “from Pain to Hope” illustrates the love that is experienced and creates bonds, and the hope that is at the heart of the Jubilee that can lead the world to the compassion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. TR Family Weekly 11 June 2025
A FATHERHOOD PRAYER. Loving God, blessed Trinity, may your Holy Spirit set the hearts of fathers on fire. Fill them with the life-giving generous love of the Father and the compassionate love of Jesus in his Sacred Heart, for their children and for peace in all homes and families of the world.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY JUNE 11
June 11. Catechists were preparing for Youth Day. “If Moses was living in the 21st century what kind of laws would God be giving him?” It seemed a good idea to get the topic of law and obeying laws and rules onto the table at this time. Is there a difference between rules and laws other than the degree of punishment? So they suggested, “Discuss at home, ‘if you were to change roles as parents and children would there be different rules in the house, about chores, phones, drinking, drugs, going out and coming home times etc.?” They formulated a number of questions that could be considered in the workshop to be led by one of the parents who was a prosecutor in the High Court. After that the Youth Day fun could start.
Reflect, share and act. Scripture: “ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Matt 5:17-20 Pope Francis. Countless studies have been made of marriage and the family, their current problems and challenges. 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. JUBILEE: An ancient appeal, one drawn from the word of God, whose wisdom remains ever timely calls for acts of clemency and liberation that enable new beginnings: “You shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants” ( Lev 25:10). This institution of the Mosaic law was later taken up by the prophet Isaiah: “The Lord has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” Act and pray. For the needs of families and children as appropriate.
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