The Passionist Family Group Movement

About Us:

The Passionist Family Group Movement  is an international organisation, which was founded in 1973 by Fr Peter McGrath CP in the parish of St. Anthony in the Fields, Terrey Hills, Sydney Australia.  Since then, it has grown from those very humble beginnings to an important part of community life in over 400 parishes in six countries. The Movement is Ecumenical and continues to grow.

The aim of the Movement is to build Christian community through the development of extended families. With loneliness and isolation so prevalent in our society, there is a genuine need for people to know and support each other. Family Groups create an extended family atmosphere within the community and are open to everyone.

Our focus is on people caring for, loving and accepting each other just as they are and, in so doing, building up the Christian community. A Family Group is very human in the deepest sense of the word. The faith level of Family Groups runs deep, "Matters of the Heart” 

Our faith is to be human with each other, to love each other, warts and all. In these very difficult times that confront us, the world needs, more than ever, to return to the values of the family.

Why have Family Groups?

Most parishoners admit to three important realities:

1. There is a need to get to know others better and to develop more of a community spirit.

2. There is a need to support others. This support is needed especially for solo-parents, those with non-Catholic partners and the generally disadvantaged.

3. They would like to help others, but they don't know who in the parish needs help.

These needs are all heart needs, not head needs. 

The Family Group Movement strives to meet these basic heart needs.

The post Vatican 2 church lays heavy emphasis on two factors that very much affect the local parish:

1. The local church is called to be a community.

2. The laity is called to exercise its proper role within the church, according to the abilities of its members.

The Family Group Movement strives to encourage pastoral care and leadership of service, highlighting the variety of ministries that can be undertaken by each ordinary person.

What is the Passionist Family Group Movement About?

Simply, it is about Love.  Our Groups, as I see it, are primarily loving relationships based upon and energised by the Spirit of God in our hearts. We are all brothers and sisters. No one is better than anyone else. We all need each other and we all depend totally upon God.  That, to me, is the basic truth of our Family Groups.

As I reflect back on my life as a priest, I can honestly say that I was trained to believe that controlled predictable progress in holiness occurred only on a vertical plane. The parishioners were in no position to help themselves because of their poor experience and limited knowledge. From Pope to Bishops to Priests, we were there to guide, inspire and correct them. For them to attempt to assist each other could be dangerous as the blind leading the blind.

However, I was blessed by being given the little tin shed church of St. Anthony in the Fields, Terrey Hills. It was here, with the people, that we were able to share our lives and help each other in an atmosphere of freedom and acceptance. I was to learn that we all have within us the Holy Spirit - the voice of love. From the youngest child to our seniors, no matter what their education, we were taught the message of love.

I was privileged to watch the miracle of Christian Community grow and transform the lives of so many people, giving them freedom and the conviction that they were good and holy in their humanity. The Family Groups provided this loving environment - spiritual oxygen and sunlight for the growth of their spirits.

In our Family Groups, as is the case today, all were equal: Leaders were servants and each member was unique. Those who joined with me to start our Family Groups in this parish, and later throughout all the parishes and places where I have worked around the world, had the same attitude. Their real satisfaction has come from their service to others.

We really never had any long-range plans or dreams of expansion. We have tried to keep the structures flexible and simple. Every effort has been made to adapt the methods and the organisation to the local environment.

We have always insisted on the aims being met, however, we have always claimed that there are different ways in our Family Groups of achieving those aims. No one-way, no one method is the only way. Therefore, no one-way, no one method, is the right way.

As I reflected, it struck me that over the years our PFGM Directors, Team Leaders, Coordinators and Leaders  have all made every effort, with all our human frailties to foster a true spirit of love and family amongst us.

In his book, “Teach Only Love”, Gerald Jampolsky, writing about his Centre for Attitudinal Healing & Terminally Ill children, eloquently says, “Sometimes my therapists will think that other groups members’ feelings are not as important as the sick children that they are all there to help. What is not realised that only people with healed relationships are in a position to give the kind of help that will last. It is peace we want to extend, and to extend peace we must first have it.” 

I believe this is paramount to our work as servants for our own people. Someone said, “It is better to be kind than right”
Father Peter McGrath   October 2003