11 September 2017 @ 14:05

The people who joined the 2017 grandparents pilgrimage to the basilica of Our Lady in Knock, County Mayo, Ireland, were over 5 thousand. “We live in a connected world, where everything is made up of networks and links, but sometimes we forget that the family is the most natural network ever, made up of connections, and you, my dear grandparents, are a vital link in the chain”, the archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland, mgr. Eamon Martin, said in his sermon. They “make sure faith and the most important values are handed down to the new generations” and they teach that “we are all part of an ancient pilgrimage”. “Even if the family is made up of relationships, it may be difficult to create connections in a generation that can be very individualistic, that emphasises ‘my’ time”, when instead one should create “’our’” time. Grandparents can also find it hard to provide the “wisdom and pains of their own life experiences” and place emphasis on “what is right and what is wrong”: this should be done, instead, with “love, tenderness and mercy”, and one should not give up helping one’s children and grandchildren “acquire a conscience of their own”. “The Church has a lot to learn from you”, mgr. Martin said, in the way of “sharing the joys, fears and concerns of its families”. And he ended: “On behalf of the children and grandchildren of Ireland, on behalf of the Church, I thank you from the deep of my heart” because you “are an important part of our lives and keep us connected with who we are, as a family and as a Church”.