In Brazil the month of August is the month of vocations. The first week to reflect, pray, deepen and ask for ministerial vocations (deacons, presbyters and bishops). The second week for the matrimonial vocation (take advantage of to celebrate Father’s Day that Sunday). The third week is dedicated to the consecrated religious vocations. And the fourth for lay vocations, celebrating the last Sunday the day of the catechist.
Taking advantage of this situation, for years now Family Week has been celebrated these dates. This year it was celebrated from August 13 to 19 with the theme “Family source of vocations”, and the motto “Burning hearts, feet on the way”. Both the Brazilian Episcopalian Conference, such as Pastoral Familiar, in addition to other Catholic publishers, have edited material for the celebration of the Week. The Prelature of Labrea, Amazonas, participate and celebrate this week with enthusiasm.
The Parish of Saint Augustine in Pauini, attended by Augustinian Recollects, has been the early riser: the celebration has been brought forward a week earlier as not to hinder the celebration of the novena of the patron saint of the Parish, Saint Augustine. Starting from the CNBB subsidies, each day has two celebrations: One at dawn, at 5:30 in the morning, for communities, which consists of family prayer. They meet in the home of a family in the community, or in the church itself to go later to the house of the host family, and there is the celebration of the Word, in which the participation and sharing life is the essential point. The setting, the songs, the gestures, the exchange of experiences… go deep into the spirituality of the family that is strengthened united in prayer. This first moment is ended with a breakfast also shared with what each one carries, as in the first Christian communities.
The second daily moment is the evening Mass. It is also celebrated in the street or in a house that has space and conditions. The Eucharist is at the parish level, and it is nice to see the guests who participated in the morning celebration. All ends with the parish mass at the Hope Center sports center. This week closes with the celebration of Father’s Day.
This year is a vocational year in Brazil and August is the vocational month. In this framework it frames the leitmotif of this year. The motto is the same as that of the vocational year: “Burning Hearts”. Everything has to start with the heart, with the feeling, by prayer. It is what has been intended: to inflame hearts by listening to Jesus who explains the Word to us as to those of Emmaus. When the heart burns when listening how the Word reveals to us, is when we will put “Feet on the way”, like those of Emmaus, who, tired from the journey, were renewed and, without rest, returned to announce to the brothers that they had met Jesus.
With the ardor of this week’s spirituality – says the Bishop of Labrea, Monsignor Santiago Sánchez–, “we are going to be an outgoing church, a burning synodal church in the cellular Church that is the family, which walks towards the peripheries making an option for the most needy. And thus the family will be a source of vocations, because the call is for all. Let us be attentive to see what the Lord asks of us.”
“The Prelature lives intensely this week. We hope that the Lord attends our prayer and sanctify our families and those of the whole world, and the families be a source of vocations for our particular Church and the universal Church, the family of God, of whom we are all children in Christ our Brother, moved by the Spirit and under the maternal gaze of Mary with Saint Joseph, patrons of the vocations. May the Trinity family (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary and Joseph), be our model.”
