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So, in the Year for the Family “Amoris Laetitia”, the Dicastery for
Laity, Family and Life has prepared this booklet on “Holiness in Families
around the World” with the purpose of providing family ministry with a
path to reveal the beauty of the vocation to marriage and family as a way
to holiness.
We are aware that, more recently, in addition to married couples, in
the Church other “categories” of saints are emerging within the People of
God: children, young engaged couples, heroic mothers who have given
their lives for their children. But for this booklet we have chosen married
couples only, in order to precisely highlight the “sanctifying” significance
of the Sacrament of Matrimony. Who knows, if perhaps in the near future
we can produce another booklet with profiles of children and young saints
of our time!
Therefore, we thought that this could partially fulfill the goal of the
2022 World Meeting of Families, that is, to reread Amoris Laetitia in the
light of Gaudete et Exsultate’s call to holiness: provoking an intertwined
reading of these two apostolic exhortations can help us rediscover the
precious value of living together as a family, revealing how an apparently
“normal” family life can truly become life in the Spirit, life in God.
Besides, this is the meaning of the expression “family spirituality”.
«The spirituality of family love – states Amoris Laetitia - is made up of
thousands of small but real gestures. In that variety of gifts and encounters
which deepen communion, God has his dwelling place […] » (AL 315).
«A positive experience of family communion is a true path to daily
sanctification» (AL 316).

WHy tHese Families?

In the text we are presenting here, we have gathered together 8
married couples whose processes of beatification and canonization may
never come to an end, but who can allow us to breathe the “air of holiness”.
They are “normal” families, who nevertheless were able to recognize Christ
in their daily relationships and keep their gaze fixed on God, allowing Him
to render the ordinary aspects of their days “extraordinary”(GE 17).

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