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| Family Groups Founder Visits London |
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Fr Peter McGrath, Australian
founder of the Passionist Family Groups Movement, was guest of honour at a
lunch hosted on May 21st 2007 by Bishop John Hine, Chair of the Bishops'
Committee for Marriage and Family Life. Fr McGrath was in
Photo caption: Back row L to R: Danny Firth (The Wednesday Word), Sarah Johnson (Everybody's Welcome Working Group), Fr Peter McGrath, Bishop John Hine. Front row L to R: Betty Pires (St Joseph's Parish, Highgate), Diana Russell (MFL Project Office volunteer) Elizabeth Davies (MFL Project Officer). Passionist Family Groups are created through grouping together 10-15 interested families for monthly social outings or gatherings. Families are grouped to include different family types – single person households of all ages, couples with or without children, parents with children or grandchildren at different stages of life. Basic guidelines keep the costs low and activities simple. “Most of all parents need to be given confidence and the best confidence you can get is through mixing with other parents," said Fr McGrath. "Family groups create somewhere that you can talk to someone else about your kids, where parents are able to relate to each other in a household setting and get support. If the children see that you are actually living in a little Christian community and people come to your place and you all sit around and talk because you share the same faith – heart faith, love, not head faith – well they cant knock that.” Visit the Family Groups website
Read more about Fr Peter McGrath
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Inspired
by the example of the early church, Passionist Family Groups aims to create
an extended family of people who share the same basic values. “In the
early Christian household churches you had every type of family member and
it’s the same with family groups,” said Fr McGrath.