Geppetto Project
by Philippe Bordeyne
We had this project with the Dicastery Laity, Family and Life to propose the continuous formation for three family movements: Equipe Notre Dame, Marriage Encounter and Love and Truth. These three movements were joint also by a group of couples that are very active at Loreto Sanctuary in Italy: The Holy House of Mary.
It was a program that started with a long weekend in Rome with pontifical audience, and the idea was to enter in the discovery of the text Amoris laetitia by pope Francis; then we had courses online every month and every couple had the commitment to study one evening a week, and that’s what they did, and during the formation online we could have a very good exchange, but also teaching and an in-between time where everybody could express themselves on the theme. And then we finished he formation in the Sanctuary of Loreto.
It was a very deep experience for any coulple to enter the Holy House of Mary and to discover again their vocation as a married couple.
I think the major discovery of the all formation is frist of all the strenght of the teaching of the popes and the nourishment that this teaching bring to every married couple. Then they discovered that that charism as movement could be shared with other movements and that they can receive each movement from the others. A real communion was created, I think, and now as we are in the process of the synod and the working text insists on the fact that there is no mission without communion.
The couples that did this formation were really renewed in their sacrament of marriange and they said that they want to commit more in to mission: mission within the movement but also mission towards those people that pope Francis call the peripheris, those people who did not have have the chance of knowining and understanding the meaning of the sacrament of marriange but also those people who failed on the way in the sacrament or in marriage itself and so that the gift and the grace of sacrament of marriage can be shared. So it’s really a renewal in the the vocation of the movement, in the vocation of the sacrament of marriage that that this one year of formation can achieve.
For the future we have to descern together. The couple expressed a very strong wish to remain in contact because they learned a lot from one another and from five continents and they got the opportunity to know better one another and the other wish is that this experience could be offered to other couples who are already committed in the family movement and that could go further towards mission, but this we have to descern. We prepared with the heads of the three movements but now any responsable in any movement has to reflect with their all team to see what is possible for the future.
