DAY FOR GRANDPAENTS AND ELDERLY ON 27 JULY. TO PREPARE PARISHES CAN INVITE FAMILIES WITH GRANDPARENTS AND GRANDCHILDREN TO MASS FOR A BLESSING FOR ALL. MARFAM RESOURCES TO FOLLOW

July 12   Family roots.  In their own families the older people shared, “A number of our generation were immigrants, but today many of our children even of different races, emigrate to different countries to find a better life, to escape from conflict and war, for safety and security or for greater wealth.  How strong are your ties to the actual land of your birth and does it really matter?”   “I may still see myself as a Hollander, an Indian or Malawian, but I wonder whether our children and the grandchildren will feel the same connectedness.”  Scripture: Joseph said to his brothers.  “I am about to die but God will visit you and bring you out of this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.  You shall carry up my bones from here.”  Gen 50: 24-26   Read from Genesis 37 to 50.   Pope Francis. Our contemporary experience of being orphans as a result of cultural discontinuity, uprootedness and the collapse of the certainties that shaped our lives, challenges us to make our families places where children can sink roots in the rich soil of a collective history.  AL 193.    The word culture points to something deeply embedded within a people, its most cherished convictions and its way of life.   It has to do with their desire, interests and ultimately the way they live their lives. FT216 JUBILEE.. What, then, will become of us after death? With Jesus, beyond this threshold we will find eternal life, consisting in full communion with God as we forever contemplate and share in his infinite love. All that we now experience in hope, we shall then see in reality.  SNC 21. Act and pray. For the needs of families, especially grandparents and the elderly.