"To hear and accept God's call, to make a home for Jesus, you must be able to
rest in the Lord. You must make time each day for prayer. But you may say to
me: Holy Father, I want to pray, but there is so much work to do! I must care
for my children; I have chores in the home; I am too tired even to sleep well.
This may be true, but if we do not pray, we will not know the most important
thing of all: God's will for us. And for all our activity, our busy-ness,
without prayer we will accomplish very little.
 "Resting in prayer is especially important for families. It is in the family
that we first learn how to pray. There we come to know God, to grow into men
and women of faith, to see ourselves as members of God's greater family, the
Church. In the family we learn how to love, to forgive, to be generous and
open, not closed and selfish. We learn to move beyond our own needs, to
encounter others and share our lives with them. That is why it is so important
to pray as a family! That is why families are so important in God's plan for
the Church!
 "Next, rising with Jesus and Mary. Those precious moments of repose, of
resting with the Lord in prayer, are moments we might wish to prolong. But
like St. Joseph, once we have heard God's voice, we must rise from our
slumber; we must get up and act. Faith does not remove us from the world, but
draws us more deeply into it. Each of us, in fact, has a special role in
preparing for the coming of God's kingdom in our world.
 "Just as the gift of the Holy Family was entrusted to Saint Joseph, so the
gift of the family and its place in God's plan is entrusted to us. The angel
of the Lord revealed to Joseph the dangers which threatened Jesus and Mary,
forcing them to flee to Egypt and then to settle in Nazareth. So too, in our
time, God calls upon us to recognize the dangers threatening our own families
and to protect them from harm.
 "The pressures on family life today are many. Here in the Philippines,
countless families are still suffering from the effects of natural disasters.
The economic situation has caused families to be separated by migration and
the search for employment, and financial problems strain many households.
While all too many people live in dire poverty, others are caught up in
materialism and lifestyles which are destructive of family life and the most
basic demands of Christian morality. The family is also threatened by growing
efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by
relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.
 "Our world needs good and strong families to overcome these threats! The
Philippines need holy and loving families to protect the beauty and truth of
the family in God's plan and to be a support and example for other families.
Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. The future of
humanity, as St. John Paul II often said, passes through the family. So
protect your families! See in them your country's greatest treasure and
nourish them always by prayer and the grace of the sacraments. Families will
always have their trials, but may you never add to them! Instead, be living
examples of love, forgiveness and care. Be sanctuaries of respect for life,
proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural
death. What a gift this would be to society, if every Christian family lived
fully its noble vocation! So rise with Jesus and Mary, and set out on the path
the Lord traces for each of you.
 "Finally, the Gospel we have heard reminds us of our Christian duty to be
prophetic voices in the midst of our communities. Joseph listened to the angel
of the Lord and responded to God's call to care for Jesus and Mary. In this
way he played his part in God's plan, and became a blessing not only for the
Holy Family, but a blessing for all of humanity. With Mary, Joseph served as a
model for the boy Jesus as he grew in wisdom, age and grace. When families
bring children into the world, train them in faith and sound values, and teach
them to contribute to society, they become a blessing in our world. God's love
becomes present and active by the way we love and by the good works that we
do. We extend Christ's kingdom in this world. And in doing this, we prove
faithful to the prophetic mission which we have received in baptism.
 "During this year which your bishops have set aside as the Year of the Poor,
I would ask you, as families, to be especially mindful of our call to be
missionary disciples of Jesus. This means being ready to go beyond your homes
and to care for our brothers and sisters who are most in need. I ask you
especially to show concern for those who do not have a family of their own, in
particular those who are elderly and children without parents. Never let them
feel isolated, alone and abandoned, but help them to know that God has not
forgotten them. You may be poor yourselves in material ways, but you have an
abundance of gifts to offer when you offer Christ and the community of his
Church. Do not hide your faith, do not hide Jesus, but carry him into the
world and offer the witness of your family life!
 "Dear friends in Christ, know that I pray for you always! I pray that the
Lord may continue to deepen your love for him, and that this love may manifest
itself in your love for one another and for the Church. Pray often and take
the fruits of your prayer into the world, that all may know Jesus Christ and
his merciful love. Please pray also for me, for I truly need your prayers and
will depend on them always".
 Following the meeting, the Pope retired to the apostolic nunciature, where he
dined privately and spent his second night in the Philippines.

___________________________________________________________

 Conclusion of the meeting of presidents of Doctrinal Commissions
 Vatican City, 16 January 2015 (VIS) - From 13 to 15 January the superiors of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith met with the presidents or
representatives of the Doctrinal Commissions of the European Episcopal
Conferences at the St. Adalbert Centre in Esztergom, Hungary. It was attended
by, among others, Cardinal Gerhard L. Muller, prefect of the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Luis F. Ladaria S.J., secretary of the
same dicastery, and representatives of the various doctrinal commissions.
 The meeting began with the reading of a letter from Pope Francis addressed to
the participants, in which he emphasised that the initiative sought to enhance
the role of local Episcopates, and in particular their Doctrinal Commissions,
"in their responsibility for the unity and integrity of the faith" and its
transmission to the young. With reference his apostolic exhortation "Evangelii
Gaudium", the Pope expresses in his letter his hope that the meeting will will
contribute to finding a collegial solution to the many doctrinal and pastoral
difficulties that exist in present-day Europe, and inspire in the faithful "a
new missionary zeal and greater openness to the transcendent dimension of
life, without which Europe risks losing the very 'humanistic spirit' that it
loves and defends".
 During the three-day meeting, which was characterised by cordiality and a
spirit of affective and effective collegiality, a number of issues were
considered in relation to the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus
Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel as the primary task of the Church in
Europe, questions posed by gender theory, Christian anthropology and religious
freedom, and the practical issues linked to the new evangelisation, the
sacrament of reconciliation and the functioning of the Doctrinal Commission.

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 Other Pontifical Acts
 Vatican City, 16 January 2015 (VIS) - The Holy Father has appointed:
 - Fr. José Maria Balina as auxiliary of Buenos Aires (area 203, population
2,944,000, Catholics 2,696,000, priests 782, permanent deacons 10, religious
1,951), Argentina. The bishop-elect was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in
1959, and was ordained a priest in 1989. He has served as parish vicar in the
parishes of "Inmaculada Concepcion", "San Pablo Apostol", and "La Sagrada
Eucaristia", and parish priest of the parishes of "Resurreccion del Senor" and
"San Isidro Labrador". He is a member of the presbyteral council of the
archdiocese of Buenos Aires,
 - Bishop Nicholas James Samra of Newton of the Greek-Melkites, U.S.A., as
apostolic administrator "sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis" of the
eparchy of Nuestra Senora del Paraiso en Mexico of the Greek-Melkites.

___________________________________________________________

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