Every three years the Catholic Church brings together the largest international gathering of families in the world. Pope Francis himself has chosen Dublin as the venue for the 9th World Meeting of Families. So, as a nation, we will be playing host to thousands of families and pilgrims from all around the globe. This event will run from the 21st to the 26th of August this year.
There will be a number of events over the 5 days with the main events being held in the RDS, Ballsbridge. The program includes guest speakers, workshops, youth and children’s programmes and the festival of Families on Saturday. The Final Mass will be held on Sunday in the Phoenix Park and we are awaiting confirmation from Rome if Pope Francis will be with us for this celebration.
To date, there have been 1,100 requests from 22 countries for accommodation alone.
As a group, Glasnevin Grouping is looking at what we can do and decided we would bring some families to Ireland who could never afford to come to this event and let us fund raise and host them. Originally the idea was to sponsor 4 families and 4 priests from Ethiopia. You might ask Why Ethiopia? Fr. Sintayhu, who is from Ethiopia is living and has been working in the Glasnevin Group of parishes as assistant priest for the past 3 years and so it was felt we could support people from his country.
After a number of meetings and much discussion it was felt that the funding required for 4 families might be better spent on a worthwhile project in Ethiopia, that would benefit more families for a greater period of time such as providing fresh water supply to a remote village. Therefore we decided it would be better to invite 2 families who will stay with families in the Glasnevin area and 2 priests who will stay with our own priests in the grouping. They will stay for 9 days. All their costs will be covered. This includes air fares, visas, passports and while here, meals and other expenses.
This will entail a great effort by our grouping, costwise and logistically in order for this project to succeed. We are appealing to parishioners to come forward, we need your help!
The most important thing will be to find hosts for the visiting families. 4 hosts will be asked to provide 4 nights bed and breakfast and maybe some evening meals for the families. Any extra costs for meals will come out of money collected in our fundraising.
Many volunteers will be needed during their stay, to help with hospitality, to provide transport, to help with planning grouping events and most importantly we need help with fundraising. The projected cost is €12,000 and €7000 is needed for air fares, visas and passports by April.
A steering group, within the Glasnevin parishes, have already been working on this project and have been busy pulling together plans, to do lists, how to fund-raise etc. and a schedule for the period of time that the families will be with us.
There are Volunteer Forms in the church and more information about the wider WMOF ‘Host a Family/Pilgrim’ program. If you are interested in any aspect of our project please show your interest by completing one of the forms or take one home and you can leave it into the parish office in the next few days.
If you have a spare room and are in a position to help us welcome families and pilgrims please give us your name. Help us make this a truly Historic Event!
If you want any more information please contact the Parish Pastoral council or any of the parish staff. Please use this form if you feel you can help.