In a “world often divided by selfishness and particularism, diversities are gifts to be shared”: this is the “important message” given by the Pope to the participants in the general chapters of the “Canossian” Sons of Charity and the Brothers of Saint-Gabriel. Receiving them in audience on April 29, in the Clementine Hall, the Sovereign Pontiff delivered the following speech.
Dear brothers and sisters, welcome!
I am happy to welcome you, the “Canossian” Sons of Charity and the Brothers of Saint-Gabriel, and in particular the Superiors General. I am happy to meet you on the occasion of your chapters, which are essential synodal events for each religious congregation.
It is primarily up to them to protect the legacy of the intentions and projects that the Spirit inspired in your founders, as well as all the good that resulted from them (cf. Code of Canon Law 578; 631). These are therefore moments of grace – a chapter is a moment of grace – to be lived above all in docility to the action of the Holy Spirit, remembering with gratitude the past, paying attention to the present – in the mutual listening and reading the signs of the times (cf. Gaudium et spes, not. 4) — and looking to the future with an open and trusting heart, for personal and community verification and renewal. Past, present and future intertwine in a chapter, to remember, to evaluate and to move forward in the development of the congregation.
Dear Canossian friends, it is very beautiful to see you here, men committed to following Christ more closely (cf. Perfectae caritatis, not. 1; Catechism of the Catholic Church, not. 916) in the footsteps of a woman, Madeleine de Canossa, whose two hundred and fifty years of birth we are celebrating. This courageous saint, in a world no less difficult than ours, set out to “make Jesus known and loved, who is not loved because he is not known.” And you, who wish to continue his missionary work, have chosen this phrase as a theme for your work: “He who does not burn cannot ignite“. It makes me sad to see religious people who look more like firefighters than men and women who have the ardor to set things ablaze. Please don’t be firefighters! There are already a lot! You therefore undertake to burn to ignite, reviving and nourishing “the gift of God which is in you” to “bear witness to the Lord” (cf. 2 Tim 1:6). And you do it in a family which, in more than two centuries of history, has been enriched with numerous gifts: present in seven countries and composed of members of ten different nationalities, supported by communion and collaboration with the Canossian sisters and by an increasingly active and involved secular reality. It is important to have lay people who are involved in the spirituality of an institute and who collaborate in its apostolic work. Certainly, it is a heritage that also brings challenges, but Saint Madeleine showed you how to overcome difficulties: with eyes fixed on the Crucified and arms open towards the last, the little ones, the poor and the sick, to care for , educate and serve the brothers with joy and simplicity. When the path becomes complicated, then, do like her: look at Jesus Crucified and look at the eyes and the wounds of the poor, and you will see that slowly the answers will make their way into your hearts with ever greater clarity.
As Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and Father Gabriel Deshayes, to whom we owe the founding of the Brothers of Saint-Gabriel, also taught us, you too, dear brothers, are committed these days to discerning the God’s will for your path, as we approach an important anniversary: three hundred and fifty years since the birth of Saint Louis-Marie. Your family, born from a small group of lay collaborators of the great preacher, today includes more than a thousand religious, engaged in pastoral assistance, human and social promotion and education – particularly for the blind and the deaf. -mutes — in thirty-four different countries. To keep your presence alive, which is a prophetic presence, you have chosen to reflect on the theme “Listen and act with courage“. “Courage”: this apostolic parrhesia, the courage that we read, for example, in the book of Acts of the Apostles. This courage. It is the Spirit who gives us this courage, and we must ask for it.
These are two attitudes — listening and courage — which require humility and faith, and which reflect well the spirit and action of Saint Louis-Marie and Father Deshayes, who also left you a precious triptych as a compass for your decisions:God alone“, there “Cross» – carved in the heart – and “Married“. To you too, then, Providence has given the richness of a varied internationality: it will do a lot of good for your growth and your apostolate, if you know how to live it by welcoming and sharing constructively, among yourselves and with all , diversities. This is an important message, especially in our world, often divided by selfishness and particularism: diversities are gifts to be shared, diversities are precious gifts! Be prophets of this, with your life. And the One who brings harmony among diversities is the Holy Spirit, who is the master of harmony. Uniformity in a religious institute, in a diocese, in a secular group, kills! Diversity in harmony makes you grow. Don’t forget this. Diversity in harmony.
Dear friends, a chapter is a “family event, but also a Church event and a salvific event” (Blessed EF Pironio, Speech at the general chapter of the Salesians, January 14, 1984). I thank you for what you do, and for the work you do every day in many different places and under different conditions. I bless you and entrust you to Mary; and I ask you, please, not to forget to pray for me. -THANKS!
