Courtney McGrailResponding to the needs of pilgrim families is the focus of the Knock family centre, writes Monica Morley
Monica Morley
One of the annual outings many families make each summer is to Our Lady’s Shrine at Knock. And on a visit there you can see the evidence of their presence. A family moves around the old church saying the rosary. A young couple recently engaged stop by to light a candle.
An old woman, worried for an ill grandchild, kneels in the silence of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. Young people enthused by the invitation to serve gather in the HUB. A young man devoted to his invalided father comes forward with him for the anointing of the sick.
Indian communities estranged from their homeland assemble to pray the stations together. All God’s people and all part of the great family of pilgrims that wind their way to Mary’s Shrine every year.
Shapes
Today, families come in many different shapes and sizes and family experiences are always varied and personal.
But what they all have in common, at some level, is the human need to pilgrim: to celebrate and give thanks, to search for answers; to find comfort and consolation, to be healed, to ask for a special request and to spend time in prayer.
And at a time when so much of family life is filled with the busy-ness of activity and a fascination with technology, finding a haven of quiet and peace under the mantle of Mary’s care still reassures many families. So resting at Knock, even for a short while, still draws many to this wellspring of faith and hope and love.
Responding to the needs of the visiting pilgrim families is the focus of the family centre at the shrine. With the election of Pope Francis, the Church worldwide has put a fresh emphasis on the importance of supporting family life and on what the Church needs to do to help families live contentedly and well in a changing world. Wishing life was different or that problems were less complex are not options.
Life and faith must be lived and celebrated in the ordinary and often mundane and difficult elements of real life.
So, ministering to families who come on pilgrimage at Knock involves providing ongoing support for those who struggle to build or maintain good relationships; it requires walking the lonely road of grief with those bereft by the sudden loss of a child or spouse; it means celebrating with those excitedly preparing for marriage; it necessitates encouraging the young, appreciating the elderly, understanding the weak, and being, in the words of Pope Francis, a ‘field hospital’ for the many broken and wounded pilgrims.
What underpins the ethos of the family centre and unites many pilgrims is the belief that whatever road a family must travel or whatever stage they find themselves on that journey, there is a richness to be gleaned from weaving a pattern of prayer through the threads of their experiences. And doing this, for families, while on pilgrimage at Knock takes many different forms.
For some it means becoming actively involved in the Masses which are held in the basilica, for others it is about leading family prayer times before the Blessed Sacrament at the shrine, while for others still, it is about opting to avail of prayer guidance and nurture an appreciation of scripture.
Of course prayer takes many forms and part of the outreach of the family centre is to provide a variety of liturgies and rituals which help families to mark and celebrate significant family occasions.
That is why preparing and publishing materials which encourage prayer as part of every home and which facilitates God being discovered in the warm atmosphere of the kitchen, is so important.
And it is our prayer that this ‘family place’ to which Mary came more than a century ago may continue to be an oasis of peace and consolation for all families who come as pilgrims in 2015 and beyond.
Monica Morley is director of Knock Shrine’s family centre and co-hosts ‘Faith Alive’ on MidWest Radio.
The Family Centre can be contacted on 094-9375320 or email familycentre@knockshrine.ie www.knockshrine.ie/familycentre