Indeed, many years passed since the redaction of the liturgies family, but in our family the arrival of two little girls, in addition to the one we had when the text was being conceived, over time has made to propose them again with new ways of involving the the different roles (now the oldest know how to read, most like the creative part of the proposed activities and the baby smiles ecstatically and admires her sisters).

Other liturgies were then thought up in different places of the house, with new activities and meanings, always personalized for our family: thus, we met to pray for openness to life in the place for a cradle, if the Lord grants us the gift of further expanding our family...

A new approach catechetical, that we have been using in recent years, is the preparation for Christmas through the construction of an Advent calendar. The objective is to build in the hearts of children (and of course also in the hearts of their parents) a truly felt eexpectancy of Jesus’ birth. On the last Sunday before Advent we meet in the parish for an afternoon, during which each family at the table constructs its own calendar that will then accompany them until Christmas. Each family is then given the “content” of each day, usually consisting of a paragraph of a story, which by stopping before the end, helps to raise expectation and desire for the next day; a brief reflection, and one or more short activities (a short game together, a phone call to an elderly person, a prayer for a baby, but this may also be taking cookies to the neighbors or a visit to a stable in order to understand the condition in which Jesus was born…), with the aim of transforming the message of the part of the story just read into an “experience.” These moments spent before an Advent wreath —with the four candles that can only be lighted progressively as the weeks go by— help everyone grow in the desire for Christmas. Even the fact that in our house “Santa Claus doesn`t come and has asked Befana for help because he has too much work,” delegating her to deliver the gifts, helps to prepare for a Christmas with an increasingly meaning. We believe that, despite the fatigue of daily life, this time “as a family” is a nice way to convey the joy of waiting for Jesus

 

2) What is the place of the house where your children prefer to pray to and carry out activities related to the Gospel?

 

Almost in spite of what we had imagined to structure for them, our daughters surprised us by showing us that they appreciate particularly for prayer a place that we had not thought of in the first draft, or even in the following one, expanded for publication: the car.

Not only reciting the Hail Mary on the way to school, but above all THEIR desire to pray the Rosary of the family, when there is enough time: of course, this doesn’t mean reciting the Joyful and Sorrowful Mysteries, but saying each Hail Mary, or every decade, explicitly naming who or what they want to pray (each of us, their friends, relatives, the other children who have mom and dad as godmother or godfather of baptism or confirmation, other families, the priests come to our home…), taking turns reading the first part and answering with the second, while the baby uses rosaries as jewelry —this has become a habit for us on longer trips. For us, mom and dad, it’s absolutely impossible to renounce the smiles that appear on their faces, when it’s their turn to be at the center of the prayers of the whole family.

 

3) Which episode in the life of the Holy Family do you feel closer and could support you, through meditation, in difficult moments in the family circle?

 

The episodes in the life of the Holy Family that we this feel closer now are, paradoxically, the unwritten ones, those of everyday life, those in which Joseph has surely acted as the father and the carpenter, in which Mary play her role as mother and took care of the house, where Jesus was a child learning to work wood: these are the first 30 years of Jesus’ life, ten elevenths of his existence, too many not to think that they did not constitute the core of Jesus' public life, during the last three years. Those who feel closer to our family are the years that the Gospel indicates by telling us that Jesus grew in age, wisdom and grace… while waiting for the day when our daughters will be lost in the caravan of life, to find them then and be informed that they are occupied with our Father’s business.

 

4) Remembering the birth of the “liturgies in the family,” which recipe would you recommend to anyone wishing to engage in a similar experience personally, in the family circle?

 

When it comes to Family Liturgies, the ESSENTIAL advice is, in fact, to let oneself be stimulated by the insights of other people, without trying sluggishly to apply them, as they are, to one’s own family: every family is differs from others in age, education, the character of its members, its habits, history, and so on. True family prayer consists in recognizing the presence of God-Love in daily life, and the liturgies that the family needs are there to make a point, to pause and reflect on that love: precisely for this reason, every family needs to adapt these liturgies to itself, by amplifying or streamlining them, reshuffling or, even better, rewriting them.

 

 

Eugenio and Chiara Guggi are from Ferrara. He graduated as a chemist in 1969 and she received her degree in chemistry, in 1976, as a quality system consultant, but she is now almost a full-time mom.

In 2005 they obtained the Diploma of Operatori di Pastorale e Politiche Famigliari (Agents of Family pastoral and politics) at the Lateran University, and they are involved in family ministry in the diocese and in Azione Cattolica.

Their children are Marta Maria, eight years old, Laura who is five and Magdalene who is a year and a half old; but they also like to remember Teresa, a baby girl who returned into the arms of the Father just a few weeks after her conception.