VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
   YEAR XXII - # 199   
   DATE 11-11-2015   
      
   Summary:   
   - Conviviality, a thermometer for measuring the health of family relationships   
   - The Pope meets with President Dragan Covic of Bosnia and Herzegovina   
   - Pope's message to the 21st public session of the Pontifical Academies: life   
   is   
   a pilgrimage   
   - Humanism with the face of charity: Mass in Florence   
   - The Holy See at UNESCO: the importance of education on climate change   
   - Other Pontifical Acts   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Conviviality, a thermometer for measuring the health of family relationships   
    Vatican City, 11 November 2015 (VIS) - This morning's Wednesday general   
   audience was held in St. Peter's Square, attended by thousands of faithful.   
   Before beginning, the Holy Father invited those present to recite a Hail Mary   
   for the cardinals, bishops, consecrated persons and laypeople who are currently   
   meeting in Florence for the National Congress of the Italian Church.   
    He dedicated today's catechesis to conviviality, a typical characteristic of   
   family life. This attitude of sharing the goods of life and of being happy to   
   do   
   so is, he said, "a precious virtue". He continued, "Its symbol, its icon, is   
   the   
   family gathered around the table, partaking of a meal together - and therefore   
   not merely food, but also sentiments, stories, and events. It is a fundamental   
   experience. When there is a celebration - a birthday, an anniversary - the   
   family gathers around the table. In some cultures it is customary to do so also   
   following bereavement, to stay close to those who suffer for the loss of a   
   family member".   
    "Conviviality is a sure thermometer for measuring the health of relations: if   
   in the family there is a problem or a hidden trouble, you understand   
   immediately   
   at the table. A family that almost never eats together, or in does not talk at   
   the table but instead watches the television, or smartphones, is not a close   
   family. Christianity has a special vocation to conviviality, as we all know.   
   The   
   Lord Jesus taught at the table, and represented the Kingdom of God as a festive   
   banquet. Jesus also chose to consign to the disciples His spiritual testament   
   at   
   the table, condensed in the memorial gesture of His Sacrifice".   
    Francis explained that the family brings to the Eucharist its own experience   
   of   
   conviviality, and opens it to the grace of a universal conviviality, of God's   
   love for the world. "Participating in the Eucharist, the family is purified of   
   the temptation to close up in itself, fortified in love and in faith, and   
   broadens the boundaries of its own fraternity according to Christ's heart. In   
   our time, marked by closed minds and too many walls, the conviviality generated   
   by the family and extended in the Eucharist becomes a crucial opportunity. The   
   Eucharist and families it nourishes are able to overcome such limitations and   
   to   
   build bridges of acceptance and charity".   
    "Nowadays many social contexts impede family conviviality. We must find a way   
   to recover it, if adapting it to the times. Conviviality seems to have become   
   something to buy and sell, but in that way it becomes something else.   
   Nourishment is not always the symbol of a just sharing of goods, able to reach   
   those who have neither bread nor affection. In rich countries we are induced to   
   spend first on excessive consumption, and then again to remedy the excess. This   
   senseless behaviour diverts our attention from the true hunger of the body and   
   the mind".   
    "The living and vital alliance of Christian families, which support and   
   embracesin the dynamism of their hospitality the burdens and joys of everyday   
   life, cooperates with the grace of the Eucharist, which is able to create ever   
   new communities with its strength that includes and saves". The Pope concluded,   
   "the Christian family thus shows the true extent of its horizon, which is the   
   horizon of the Mother Church and all humanity, the abandoned and excluded among   
   all peoples".   
      
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    The Pope meets with President Dragan Covic of Bosnia and Herzegovina   
    Vatican City, 11 November 2015 (VIS) - Before today's general audience, in the   
   study of the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father received Dragan Covic, the incumbent   
   chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, accompanied by the   
   representatives of the Organising Committee of the State and the Church for his   
   pastoral visit on 6 June this year.   
    "I would like to thank you for your visit", he said. "I still hold in my heart   
   that many great and beautiful things I have learned from you: your capacity for   
   suffering, your capacity for forgiveness or at least to seek to forgive, your   
   capacity to join and work together, your capacity for dialogue. Many thanks for   
   the examples you give to humanity. I ask you to greet, on my behalf, your   
   people, all the people, the two other presidents, and the communities that have   
   a different religion but which meet, speak, and dialogue for the good of the   
   country. May they speak between themselves and help your homeland to go ahead.   
   And greet your good young people! I remember the questions they asked me. They   
   are the promise of your homeland".   
    The Holy Father thanked those present, asking them for their prayers. He gave   
   his blessing to Bosnia-Herzegovina and its families, children and future,   
   encouraging them to continue on their path.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Pope's message to the 21st public session of the Pontifical Academies: life is   
   a pilgrimage   
    Vatican City, 11 November 2015 (VIS) - Yesterday the Pontifical Academies held   
   their 21 st public session, organised by the Pontifical Council for Culture,   
   which coordinates these institutions. The theme of the session this year was:   
   "Ad limina Petri: monumental traces of pilgrimage in the first centuries of   
   Christianity". During the event Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, on   
   behalf of the Holy Father, awarded the Pontifical Academies Award to young   
   experts, artists and institutions distinguished in the course of the year in   
   the   
   promotion of Christian humanism.   
    Pope Francis sent the participants a message in which he recalls how in the   
   Bull to convoke the Jubilee of Mercy, Misericordiae Vultus, he underlined the   
   importance of pilgrimage as a distinctive sign of the Holy Year as "it is the   
   icon of the path that every person must walk in his or her existence. Life is a   
   pilgrimage and the human being a viator, a pilgrim who follows a road up to the   
   intended goal. Even to reach the Holy Door in Rome too, or in any other place,   
   each person must carry out, according to his or her strengths, a pilgrimage. It   
   will be a sign of the fact that mercy too is an objective to be reached and   
   which requires commitment and sacrifice. Pilgrimage, therefore, may be a   
   stimulus to conversion: by passing through the Holy Door we will let ourselves   
   be embraced by God's mercy and we will endeavour to be merciful with others as   
   the Father is with us".   
    He goes on to refer to the theme of the Session, noting that since the first   
   centuries of the Christian age the itineraries of pilgrims, both ecclesiastics   
   and laypeople, have been well documented by various sources, "including the   
   graffiti left in the places they visited, by the side of the tombs of martyrs.   
   From this evidence there emerges the genuine and generous faith of those who   
   journey with great courage and also with many sacrifices, to encounter, and   
   indeed to touch with their hands, the witnesses of faith and their memories, so   
   as to draw new enthusiasm and inner strength to live their own faith   
   increasingly deeply and coherently".   
    He remarks that pilgrimage, as is shown by those who have walked part of the   
   ancient itineraries, rediscovered and retraced in our times, "is also an   
   experience of mercy, sharing and solidarity with those who take the same road,   
   as well as welcome and generosity on the part of those who host and assist   
   pilgrims. Among the works of corporal mercy, that I have wished to re-propose   
   as   
   one of the signs characterising the Holy Year, welcome to strangers stands out.   
   A glance at Christian antiquity and the traces left by pilgrims reminds us of   
   the commitment to welcome and sharing, that in the experience of pilgrimage   
   becomes a conscious itinerary of conversion and joyful daily practice".   
    Finally, the Pope announces the names of this year's winners of the prize that   
   "awards a valuable contribution to archaeological study and relates to the   
   worship of martyrs". The winners are, ex aequo, the Portuguese association   
   "Campo Arqueologico di Mertola", whose referent is Professor Virgilio Lopes,   
   for   
   the archaeological campaigns carried out in recent years and for the   
   extraordinary results obtained; and to Matteo Braconi for his excellent   
   doctoral   
   thesis on "The mosaic of the apse of the Basilica of St. Pudenziana in Rome.   
   History, restoration, interpretations", defended at the Rome Tre University.   
    As a sign of encouragement for research in the fields of history and religion,   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)