At noon today, in the Consistory Hall at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience members attending the General Chapter of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Dehoniani).
Dear Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
I am pleased to welcome you on the occasion of your General Chapter, which constitutes a privileged moment for deepening and for the growth of your religious family, and I willingly welcome this occasion to express to your new Superior General, Father Heiner Wilmer, my personal congratulations for the task to which he has been called in trust by his confreres. Through you, I greet all the Dehonians, who are at work, often in difficult situations, in various parts of the world, and I encourage them to continue with generous faith the apostolic commitment that they are living. During the work of the Chapter, you focused your reflection on the community that is called to live reconciled with life, in order to share the life of the gospel with others, especially with those who find themselves on the margins of society. From this understanding, the theme of your Chapter: Merciful, in community with the poor has found its roots. I therefore wish to propose a few suggestions to help your pastoral work.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy (Mt 5: 7). Religious life is indicated as a fully evangelical life, as it puts the Beatitudes into practice. Therefore, as Religious, you are called to be merciful. It is above all a matter of living in profound communion with God in prayer, in meditating on Sacred Scripture, in celebrating the Eucharist, so that our whole life is a journey of growth in the mercy of God. To the extent that we become aware of the free love of the Lord and welcome it, we also will grow in tenderness, understanding and kindness toward the people around us. Efforts aimed at renewing your Institute and your mission in the world necessarily embrace the loving solicitude for the situation of every individual Religious, so that his consecration will be more and more the source of a life-giving and sanctifying encounter with Jesus, whose pierced heart is a source of consolation, peace and salvation for all men.
Religious life is a coexistence of believers who feel loved by God and who seek to love Him. Precisely in this common effort, you can find the deeper reason for your spiritual harmony. In the experience of God's mercy and love, you are also the point of harmonization for your communities. This involves a commitment to savour more and more the mercy that your brothers will use and to give them the richness of your mercy. In all this, the witness of your founder, the great apostle of the Sacred Heart, is an example and a help.
Mercy is the word that synthesizes the Gospel, we can say that it is the face of Christ, the face that He showed when He went out to everyone, when He healed the sick, when He sat at table with sinners, and especially when, nailed to the cross, He forgave: there we have the face of divine mercy. And the Lord calls you to be channels of this love for those in the first place and for those in the last, even to the very poor, who - in His eyes - are the privileged. Let yourselves continually question situations of fragility and poverty with which you meet, and try to offer in suitable ways the witness of charity that the Spirit pours into your hearts (cf Rom 5: 5). The style of mercy will allow you to open yourselves with readiness to current needs and to be diligently present in the new arena for evangelization, giving priority, even if this entails sacrifices, to openness to the realities of extreme need that prove to be a disease symptomatic of today's society.
The history of your congregation is marked and made fruitful by so many of your brothers who have spent their lives generously in the service of the Gospel, by living in docile communion with other Pastors, with undivided hearts which are focused on Christ and with the spirit of poverty. Through these testimonies, their evangelical choices illumine your missionary commitment and are to be an encouragement to continue your particular mission in the Church with renewed apostolic zeal. In the wake of these reports, you can give new impetus to a missionary spirit in the different contexts in which you are placed.
I hope that the guidelines drawn up by the General Chapter will guide your institute to continue its journey with generosity, a path first traced by your founder. With these sentiments, I invoke the heavenly protection of the Virgin Mary and cordially impart to all of you and the entire Dehonian family a special Apostolic Blessing.
Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
addressed to the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Dehonians
Dear Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
I am pleased to welcome you on the occasion of your General Chapter, which constitutes a privileged moment for deepening and for the growth of your religious family, and I willingly welcome this occasion to express to your new Superior General, Father Heiner Wilmer, my personal congratulations for the task to which he has been called in trust by his confreres. Through you, I greet all the Dehonians, who are at work, often in difficult situations, in various parts of the world, and I encourage them to continue with generous faith the apostolic commitment that they are living. During the work of the Chapter, you focused your reflection on the community that is called to live reconciled with life, in order to share the life of the gospel with others, especially with those who find themselves on the margins of society. From this understanding, the theme of your Chapter: Merciful, in community with the poor has found its roots. I therefore wish to propose a few suggestions to help your pastoral work.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy (Mt 5: 7). Religious life is indicated as a fully evangelical life, as it puts the Beatitudes into practice. Therefore, as Religious, you are called to be merciful. It is above all a matter of living in profound communion with God in prayer, in meditating on Sacred Scripture, in celebrating the Eucharist, so that our whole life is a journey of growth in the mercy of God. To the extent that we become aware of the free love of the Lord and welcome it, we also will grow in tenderness, understanding and kindness toward the people around us. Efforts aimed at renewing your Institute and your mission in the world necessarily embrace the loving solicitude for the situation of every individual Religious, so that his consecration will be more and more the source of a life-giving and sanctifying encounter with Jesus, whose pierced heart is a source of consolation, peace and salvation for all men.
Religious life is a coexistence of believers who feel loved by God and who seek to love Him. Precisely in this common effort, you can find the deeper reason for your spiritual harmony. In the experience of God's mercy and love, you are also the point of harmonization for your communities. This involves a commitment to savour more and more the mercy that your brothers will use and to give them the richness of your mercy. In all this, the witness of your founder, the great apostle of the Sacred Heart, is an example and a help.
Mercy is the word that synthesizes the Gospel, we can say that it is the face of Christ, the face that He showed when He went out to everyone, when He healed the sick, when He sat at table with sinners, and especially when, nailed to the cross, He forgave: there we have the face of divine mercy. And the Lord calls you to be channels of this love for those in the first place and for those in the last, even to the very poor, who - in His eyes - are the privileged. Let yourselves continually question situations of fragility and poverty with which you meet, and try to offer in suitable ways the witness of charity that the Spirit pours into your hearts (cf Rom 5: 5). The style of mercy will allow you to open yourselves with readiness to current needs and to be diligently present in the new arena for evangelization, giving priority, even if this entails sacrifices, to openness to the realities of extreme need that prove to be a disease symptomatic of today's society.
The history of your congregation is marked and made fruitful by so many of your brothers who have spent their lives generously in the service of the Gospel, by living in docile communion with other Pastors, with undivided hearts which are focused on Christ and with the spirit of poverty. Through these testimonies, their evangelical choices illumine your missionary commitment and are to be an encouragement to continue your particular mission in the Church with renewed apostolic zeal. In the wake of these reports, you can give new impetus to a missionary spirit in the different contexts in which you are placed.
I hope that the guidelines drawn up by the General Chapter will guide your institute to continue its journey with generosity, a path first traced by your founder. With these sentiments, I invoke the heavenly protection of the Virgin Mary and cordially impart to all of you and the entire Dehonian family a special Apostolic Blessing.
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