The Family Prayer Book
The Council for Marriage and the Family in conjunction with Veritas launched a new hardback prayer book entitled The Family Prayer Book at their inaugural conference on 28th September 2013 i Maynooth.
This prayer book can be used by those preparing for Marriage and married couples, by family members and families, by individuals and by those who want to pray for marriage and family life for personal prayer and prayer together. It offers prayers for daily use or it can be dipped into from time to time, allowing the section and prayer titles to guide the readers towards their choice.
Cardinal Seán Brady, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland launched the prayer book saying:
“We are all familiar with that saying ‘the family that prays together, stays together’ and in launching this new family prayer book I am encouraging families to do just that – to take time out for prayer. This prayer book is a very accessible and user friendly collection of prayers we know, prayers we may have forgotten and new prayers gathered by the members of the Council for Marriage and the Family. I congratulate Bishop Jones, all the members of the Council and Veritas on this production.”
Inaugural conference – ‘Marriage at the Heart of the Church’
The Council for Marriage and the Family of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference whose members, lay and ordained, have a particular interest and commitment to supporting family life in society and the Church, organised its first national conference on the theme ‘Marriage at the heart of the Church’.
The guest speaker was Dr Stijn Van den Bossche, from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Stijn is a lay man, married with three grown-up children. The general theme of a new course on marriage in which he collaborated last year was: how does marriage teach us what being a Christian is about, how does being a Christian teach us what marriage is about?
Commenting on the conference Bishop Christopher Jones, Chair of the Council for Marriage and the Family said:
“I am very pleased with today’s gathering which had at its heart a focus on marriage and the family. It was a wonderful opportunity to explore and deepen our sense of marriage and family which is at the heart of the Church and society. Renewing our appreciation of how married couples can be a support to each other and how the Christian vision of marriage can become a catalyst for renewal of good neighbourliness and support in local communities could offer something timely and important for us all. My hope is that today’s Conference will contribute to this reimagining of the link between the sacrament of marriage, the call to witness to the faithful love of God for his Church and the renewal of community and good neighbourliness in our society. This hope extends to our understanding of the Christian vocation of the family, based on marriage. The family is where the Christian faith is first encountered and lived. It is where we learn, in concrete experience, what it means to love and care for others, what it is to be ‘a good neighbour’, what it is to be a good friend.”
