My brothers and sisters, I am sure as you have already heard, our Holy Father, Pope Francis will be making his visit to the city of Philadelphia in September of 2015. Everyone is preparing for this visit, be it the actual organizers of the event to the local parishes planning to make a pilgrimage to Philadelphia to celebrate “The World Meeting of Families.” Please visit the following website, http://www.worldmeeting2015.org for more information.

Holy Family has and is preparing in many ways, to mention a few here, we have placed prayer cards in the pews which we have been praying at every mass as the closing prayer to the petitions (prayer of the faithful) and will continue to do up until Palm Sunday. We also distributed personal prayer cards to take home. On Easter Sunday we will announce, distribute and pray our new Vision-Mission Statement and then return to the Holy Family prayer until the Pope’s visit.

In light of all this preparation we will also be having four theological presentations by Fr. John in order to prepare ourselves for the Holy Father’s visit but to also reflect on the year of the family and the importance of the family. The presentations will be on the following dates and themes:

1) Saturday March 14th at 6:30pm in the Aquin Hall, “Discipleship and Evangelization”
2) Saturday April 18 at 6:30pm in the Aquin Hall, “On Marriage”
3) Saturday May 16 at 6:30pm in the Aquin Hall, “On Christian Witness: Martyrs Then and Now”
4) Saturday September 26 at 6:30pm in the Aquin Hall, “My Vocation, Your Vocation: Family Life, Single Life, Priestly and Religious Life” (subject to change depending on the Holy Father’s actual visit which will be in September, the dates have yet to be confirmed, we may have to move our presentation week earlier or a week later)

We pray that you will be able to join on us for some theological discussion and fellowship. Holy Family will also provide a simple meal (pizza and finger food) and beverages (soda, water, coffee)