24 May 2022

It’s been an arduous couple of years for many Australian families. Drought, bushfires, a pandemic and then the floods that ravaged parts of Queensland and NSW in March.

The purpose of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, on love in the family, is to describe and evaluate the ‘joy of love’ experienced in family life — for this joy is a powerful proclamation that the gospel is indeed good news for the fractured and questioning family of humanity (1).

At a little over 160 cm, I’m not tall but I’m also not short. And yet I find myself with two children, of which our eldest is 10 years old and now less than 8 cm from overtaking me. As I see him edging ever closer to my height, I’ve been heard to beg him in mock desperation, “Would you please stop growing?”