David

R M Williams, Australian bushman and entrepreneur once said only a fool doesn’t believe in God. The man who created finely crafted leather goods lived to the ripe old age of 95 and was a true believer to the end.

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?”