The World Meetings of the Families originated in 1981, when the Pope enacted the Apostolic Exhortation ‘Familiaris Consortio’ and constituted the Pontifical Council for the Family, to which Monsignor Agustin Garcia Gasco, Archbishop of Valencia, belongs.

The first World Meetings of the Families took place in Rome in 1994 and since then, by invitation of the Pope, has taken place every three years; in Rio De Janeiro in 1997, again in Rome in 200, because of the holy year, and then in Manila in 2003. Its main aim is to ‘celebrate the divine gift of the family and to unite families in prayer, speaking, learning, sharing’ and getting deeper into the comprehension of the role that the Christian family plays as a domestic church and the basis of evangelization, according to sources of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

The next Meeting is to be celebrated in 2006 in Valencia and will be the fifth one ever since the Pope first arranged it in 1994.

Every Meeting is constituted of five main activities:

• An International Congress on Pastoral Theology,
• A Congress on children,
• Eucharistic celebrations for the families on pilgrimage,
• A gathering and festival with testimonies from the families, and
• The concluding mass by the Pope or his legacy, concelebrated by the cardinals, bishops and priests of all over the world.

Each one of the Meetings has so far attracted more than a million people.

The icon shows the return of the Holy Family from Jerusalem to Nazareth, after the child was lost and found in the Temple. Saint Joseph is carrying Jesus on his shoulders and is looking towards the Virgin Mary, his Mother, who shows him the scroll with the Word of his Mission, where it can be read in Greek the beginning of passage from Isaiah 61, 1-2: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me...".

In the face of Saint Joseph appear the physical appearance of the Servant of Yahweh (the Holy Shroud), like a sign that Saint Joseph will prepare Jesus in his mission of the Servant of God who carries upon himself the sins of the world (Is 53). The fact that adolescent Jesus is carried on the shoulders, wants to point out the importance that the father has in the midst of the family in order to introduce the young person into the adult life. The icon shows the necessity which the man has of the family in order to become an adult, the same way by which God has shown it to us through the Holy Family of Nazareth.

The fact that Saint Joseph is carrying Jesus on the shoulders is already found, even though rarely, in the ancient iconography tradition, for instance in the mosaics of the church of Cora (12th century), in Istanbul, where, in the return from of Egypt to Nazareth, Saint Joseph carries the Child on the shoulder, and his mother is following. That sight is also found in modern authors; for instance William Dobson (1817-1878) in a painting where Saint Joseph is carrying in his arms the Child Jesus already adolescent in the return to Nazareth, from the meeting with the Doctors in the Temple of Jerusalem (Tate Gallery in London).

The fact that the Virgin gives to the Child the Word, can be found and many icons of the Orthodox Church, called "Eleusa Kykkotissa" (Glorious Virgin of Kykko). This name comes from the monastery of Kykko in Cyprus, which conserves and icon attributed to Saint Luke, where it can be seen the Virgin who carries the Child, big already, in her arms and is giving him the scroll of Isaiah. Copies of it can be found in many countries as, for example, in Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai. The great Russian painter Simon Usciakov (16th century) painted a beautiful Kykkotissa that can be seen at Trejakov’s Gallery I in Moscow.

The icon measures are 1 x 1.2 meters and was oil painted on oak’s wood covered with gold leaf by Kiko Argüello, initiator of the Neocatechumenal Way, by initiative of the Pontifical Council for the Family in occasion of the II World Meeting of the Families held in Rio de Janeiro (1997). This icon has been donated by the author to the Holy Father.

Information about each of the previous WMF's:

• I WMF (Rome, 1994)
• II WMF (Río de Janeiro, 1997)
• III WMF (Rome, 2000)
• IV WMF (Manila, 2003)