POPE’S homily on families
What you need to know:
Forgiveness. On September 22, 2015, World Communications Day, Pope Francis advised families in Cuba on the importance of forgiveness in marriage. The message below was originally delivered in Spanish.
“There is no perfect family. We have no perfect parents, we are not perfect, do not get married to a perfect person, neither do we have perfect children.
We have complaints about each other. We are disappointed by one another. Therefore, there is no healthy marriage or healthy family without the exercise of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is vital to our emotional health and spiritual survival. Without forgiveness, the family becomes a theatre of conflict and a bastion of grievances. Without forgiveness, the family becomes sick.
Forgiveness is the sterilisation of the soul, cleansing the mind and the liberation of the heart.
Anyone who does not forgive has no peace of soul and communion with God. Pain is a poison that intoxicates and kills. Maintaining a wound of the heart is a self-destructive action. It is an autophagy.
He who does not forgive sickens physically, emotionally and spiritually. That is why the family must be a place of life and not of death; an enclave of cure not of disease; a stage of forgiveness and not of guilt.
Forgiveness brings joy where sorrow produced pain; and healing, where pain caused disease.”
What Ugandans think of the Pope’s message on families
“It is imperative that we learn to forgive each other as partners, friends, brothers and sisters. Like the Pope says, pain is poison that intoxicates and kills one’s inner being if you fail to forgive.”
Mimi Ssemakula, Flight attendant
“It is the most sensible message I have heard in a long time. As his holiness puts it, forgiveness is the greatest medicine of a wounded soul. Hard as it is, it gives a new meaning to the wounded hence bringing about family harmony and peace.”
Ryn Lalam, school administrator
“I agree that to forgive is to access one another’s negatives. We are all sinners therefore, forgiving each other’s imperfections and negative aspects draws us more towards loving and caring for each other.”
Sarah Zawedde, female artiste
“The Pope’s message is nice and vital not only to the Catholics but all Ugandans, mostly those that have ever betrayed others and those that inflict pain on others. So, everyone should to try to forgive.”
Reech Recarter, Strategic information officer
“Everyone gets hurt but how do you deal with anger? The Pope’s message shows the good in forgiveness since no one is perfect. No matter the pain, try and forgive as this will also free yourself.”
Prince Chosen Steve SSerwada, businessman
“It came at a time when many families and marriages have broken up because of failure to forgive each other’s mistakes. We should forgive each other for the best of the community. ’
Dixon Kisauzi, hotel manager
Compiled by Christine Katende
