WMoF2018 - July 2018 News and Updates

For the most recent updates on WMOF2018 check out their social media sites (listed on the right hand side bar!). The following is the most recent email news letter from the WMoF2018 office:

Booking has now Closed for Final Mass in Phoenix Park! Over 500,000 tickets have been booked for the Final Mass of WMOF2018, which will be celebrated by Pope Francis. All tickets have now been reserved and booking has closed for this event. The Mass will take place at 3pm in the Phoenix Park, Dublin on Sunday 26 August. Requests for tickets for WMOF2018 have been overwhelming and we are delighted to announce that each of the events is now fully booked. Within a week of tickets being released to the public, 400,000 tickets for the Closing Mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park were booked, all 45,000 tickets for Knock Shrine were booked within the first 4 hours and the Pastoral Congress in the RDS is now also fully booked, with a record-breaking 37,000 registrations. We are delighted that so much interest has been expressed and, with over 10,000 overseas bookings, we look forward to welcoming many pilgrims and families from all over the world. WMOF2018 is a record-breaking Word Meeting of Families with the highest number of people registered to the Pastoral Congress, the highest number of international pilgrims attending and the highest amount of children and young people attending! Thank you to all of you! This month, we have news and updates on the programme for the Pastoral Congress and the Host a Family project, information on the WMOF2018 Pilgrim Walk, an outline of our sustainability theme, ‘Our Common Home’, an introduction to our ‘Humans of World Meeting of Families 2018’ Facebook page, resources to encourage preparation in the home for WMOF2018, as well as links to our latest blogs. With only a few short weeks to go, we are all looking forward with great anticipation to August and a joyful exploration and celebration of love and family life today.

Photo Credit: WMOF2018  Pastoral Congress Programme released The programme for the three-day Pastoral Congress in the RDS, Dublin has now been released and is published on the WMOF2018 website. We have an exciting line-up of keynote addresses, panels, presentations and workshops, with options for everyone, young people and adults alike. We have a varied and interesting schedule in the main arena which reflects on the theme, ‘The Gospel of the Family: Joy for the World’. This was chosen by Pope Francis, offering families the opportunity to have a way of deepening their reflection and their sharing of the content of The Joy of Love (Amoris Laetitia)’. The Congress will also offer fun and prayerful activities for individuals and families, including a tailored programme for children (4-12 yrs) and teenagers (13-17 yrs). The highlight of each day will be the celebration of the Eucharist in the Family Arena. Fun activities for all the family will run throughout the day in the Conference venue, except during the celebration of Mass in the Family Arena. Listen to Speaker Manager Hannah Evans discussing the range of workshops, talks and discussions featuring speakers and panellists from across the world.

©WMOF2018  Meet Eirinn, the WMOF2018 Mascot! Éirinn is the official mascot for World Meeting of Families 2018! She loves to play, sing and dance and would like to say a big “Hello” to all the boys and girls attending the World Meeting of Families in Dublin, 2018! She will be present with us during the events, inviting children and families to participate in our activities. Éirinn means ‘Ireland’ in our native Irish language and this is our mascot's name as Ireland is home to the World Meeting of Families 2018. The Sheep is a very special animal that appears in the Bible. The Parable of the Lost Sheep is one of Jesus’ great stories in the Gospels. It is about a shepherd who leaves his flock of ninety-nine sheep to find the one which is lost. Just like each sheep is a member of the flock, each one of us is an important member of God’s family. Read more about Éirinn here.

Embark on a seven-Church Pilgrimage in Dublin: The WMOF2018 Pilgrim Walk! From Saturday 18 August to Saturday 25 August, we invite pilgrims, in a single day or over the period of the week, to undertake the WMOF2018 Pilgrim Walk. This will involve visiting seven designated churches, spending time in prayer in each of them for a special intention related to families and finishing the visit with the WMOF2018 prayer. Each pilgrim will be issued with a pilgrim walk passport, which will be stamped at each station, in the ancient tradition of the Camino of St James. A pilgrimage certificate of completion will be stamped when they arrive at the last of the seven churches. The churches can be visited in any order. Families, groups, individuals, adults and children are all invited to participate in the pilgrim walk. There is no charge to participate. This is an event organised by the Dublin Diocesan Preparatory Committee and supported by the WMOF2018 Office. The route for the WMF2018 Pilgrim Walk includes seven Churches in the city: St Teresa’s Carmelite Church, Clarendon Street. The theme for this station is the gift of parents to the family. St Francis Xavier’s, Gardiner Street. The theme for this station is the role of teachers in enriching the children of our families. St Saviour's, Dominick Street. The theme of this station is ‘God walks with families when times are tough.’ St Michan’s, Halston Street. The theme for this station is the gift of children to the family. St Michan’s, Church Street. The theme for this station is fostering the gift of forgiveness among families. This is an Anglican Church, and its inclusion is part of the ecumenical dimension of the Pilgrim Walk. St Audoen’s Church, High Street. The theme for this station is the gift of grandparents to the family. Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Whitefriars), Aungier Street. The theme for this station is love at the heart of the family. We also invite pilgrims to visit the Cathedral Church of the Archdiocese of Dublin: St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Marlborough Street. The theme for this station is the gift of brothers and sisters within the family. Please note that The Pro-Cathedral will close after 12:45pm Mass on Thursday 23 August until Sunday 26 August in the morning.

©WMOF2018  Host a Family/Pilgrim Programme prepares for 1,700 Overseas Guests There will be over 15,000 oversea pilgrims coming to Ireland for WMOF2018, many of which have applied to stay with other families in Ireland. We have almost reached the target of 1,700 beds for overseas visitors and the call-out for pilgrims has now closed. We are delighted with the enthusiastic and positive response from potential host families. Now we are in the process of visiting our hosts, talking through the plans and matching hosts and overseas pilgrims. Several large-group parish meetings are scheduled in Parish Centres around Dublin to brief hosts and finalise details. It’s wonderful to be able to give this accommodation offer to pilgrims who otherwise might not have been in a position to attend WMOF2018. We look forward to welcoming them, and all our overseas pilgrims to WMOF2018! Read how the hosts are preparing to welcome thousands of pilgrims on our latest blog!

©WMOF2018 How We Can Prepare At Home for WMOF2018 As preparations continue for all the different events of WMOF2018 and as we get closer to August, we encourage families to make their own prayerful preparations for our great event. We are delighted to have many families with young children registered for WMOF2018. Along with the various resources for adults for use in the parish and at home, we have also created materials to engage our younger family members. As excitement builds for WMOF2018 and the visit of Pope Francis, why not encourage children to visit our resources page, where our Pray-a-Thon can be downloaded. This is an invitation to reach out to family members/friends and pray for them and any special intentions they might have. The Pray-a-Thon card has space for up to 20 names and the children write down the names of family members/friends for whom they will pray on each day of their Pray-A-Thon. Read more about and download the Pray-a-Thon here. Our “Prayer Space at Home” initiative invites us to share pictures of the spaces where we pray in our homes, as an opportunity to explore how we pray, where we pray at home and how we transform everyday spaces into places that serve to remind us of God. Follow the link to upload your photos here. Finally, as young children love to ‘colour-in’, we have created colouring pages of different figures in the Icon of the Holy Family and of our St Patrick's Day window stickers. This offers a good opportunity to discuss together the meaning and messages behind the images, as the children create their works of art! Check out our Colouring-In pages here. And of course, visit our Amoris; Let's Talk Family! Let's Be Family! Programme, which has been running since August 2017 leading the preparations for our event. If you are an international visitor, access the International Catecheses for WMOF2018, available in five languages on the website of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

©WMOF2018 Care of Our Common Home “In the family too, we can rethink our habits of consumption and join in caring for the environment as our common home.” (Amoris Laetitia, 277) In response to Pope Francis' call for families to care for our own environment, WMOF2018 is inviting all pilgrims attending in August into a conversation about ‘Our Common Home’. People can visit ‘Our Common Home’ eco-spaces and join in discussion, prayer and action in caring for our beautiful planet. They can hear some of the eco-stories of families from around the world and discover more about how we can care for our beautiful world and live more sustainable lives; they can visit some of our eco-exhibitions and participate of various workshops dealing with how to care for our planet. The ‘Our Common Home’ Project at WMOF2018 is being offered in partnership with the Global Catholic Climate Movement, Trócaire & Laudato Si' Ireland. Read more about ‘Our Common Home’ spaces at WMOF2018.

©WMOF2018  Humans of WMOF2018 The original ‘Humans of…’ project was started in New York City in 2010, to share the stories of a cross-section of the city’s inhabitants. The portraits and accompanying stories were shared on a Facebook page which now has over twenty million followers and the phenomenon has spread worldwide. With the Humans of World Meeting of Families 2018 Facebook page we capture and catalogue family stories and anecdotes about family life, past and present, from WMOF2018 staff, volunteers, diocesan and parish participants as well as those preparing to travel to WMOF2018 from other countries. These stories are linked by the theme of faith. Check out the Humans of WMOF2018 on our website here or follow us on the dedicated Facebook page here. We hope you enjoy them!

©iCatholic