Italy – Families’ Retreat with ADMA

15 August 2016

(ANS – Pracharbon) – From 31st July to 20th August 400 people are attending a retreat at Pracharbon, Val d’Ayas, Valle d’Aosta – three rounds within the three weeks -. They are members of the Association of Mary Help of Christians, founded by Saint John Bosco.

Just like that, this would not be a remarkable piece of news, since many are choosing this summer break for a moment of spiritual renewal in contact with nature, on the Alps.

What makes this retreat unique and ultramodern, after the two synods on family life, is the fact that those attending are ninety families with their children, some just few months after delivery and some already above 18.

The formula is simple: the grown up children take care of the smaller ones with a very well organized summer camp programme, ‘giving back’ to their parents a bit of that time that was given by Dad and Mum to them as children. In this way the parents can spend this week in prayer and intimacy with the Lord, recharging in faith, hope and charity their life as spouses and parents, ready to start afresh the family journey with renewed ‘joy of love’.

It’s impossible to express in words the beauty and the human warm one immediately feels, joining this big family of families. All care for all, and the same tenderness and affection one can see towards the smaller ones is felt as well in the relationship with the Lord and with Mary, and equally in the friendship that unites everybody.

Amoris Laetitia is like the GPS that traces the way forward and leads step by step for the whole week. Ample time for silence – Thursday is a complete day of ‘desert’ – is interwoven with intense moments of group sharing. The Word enlightens life and lived family life gives to the Word of God such unique concreteness and richness, that very type that only within family relationships can be experienced. 

They are normal common families, not a selected élite. The association of Mary Help of Christians during the last 20 years gathered around the ‘ADMA primaria’ of Turin Valdocco a substantial number of young families. No one of these marriages ended up with a separation during this time. The large majority of the couples got three or four kids, some even six.

Which are the pillars on which such a rich experience of faith and love could be built? Those two don Bosco dreamed about: the Eucharist, as the ‘rock’ of the presence of the Lord within the family on which house and home are securely built, and Mary: to her with filial confidence every step is entrusted, joyful and sorrowful daily mysteries, that very type each family has to face nowadays. Nothing could be more elementary for a Christian living:  nothing could be more fruitful. 

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