Monday, October 10, 2016

Encouragement for Pallottine Fathers

At 11:30am today, in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience the participants attending the General Chapter of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (Pallottines).


Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
addressed to the Society of the Catholic Apostolate
(Pallottines)

Dear brothers and sisters, welcome!

I am happy to welcome you on the occasion of your twenty-first General Assembly.  I cordially greet you and thank your Superior General for his words.  I extend my greetings to all the members of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate and to those who share the charism of Saint Vincent Pallotti.  He has become an illuminating and inspiring beacon in the Church.  His charism is a precious gift of the Holy Spirit, because he incited and continues to incite various forms of apostolic life and calls the faithful to actively engage in bearing witness to the gospel.

Your Founder understood that in order to live in communion with God, Jesus Christ, the divine model of the entire human race must be placed at the centre of our lives (Complete works II, p. 541).  In this Holy Year of Mercy, I am pleased to recall the fact that Vincent Pallotti had the gift to recognize that Jesus is the Apostle of the Father, great in love and rich in mercy; he is the One who carries out his mission by revealing to all people the tender love and the infinite mercy of the Father.  This mystery of God's fatherhood, which is offered to everyone through the work of the Son, his heart full of love and compassion, takes on a particular significance in our times.  Before our very eyes, every day we see scenes of violence, sometimes mercilessly applied, and hardened and desolate hearts.  We need even more than ever to remind each other of our Father, whose heart thinks of everyone and wishes all people to be saved.  Mercy is the strength that conquers all, that fills the heart with love and consoles with forgiveness (Misericordiae Vultus, 9).

The reflections of your General Assembly focused on the following words spoken by your holy Founder: The fundamental role of our minimal Congregation is the life of our Lord Jesus Christ in order to imitate him with humility and trust with all possible perfection in all the works of hidden life and public evangelical ministry (Complete Works III, p. 40).  In the light of these precious directions, every member of the Pallottine family is called to place the person of Christ at the foundation of his existence and to be faithful in following Him.

Contemplating the life of Jesus and looking at our lives as pilgrims in this world, complete with so many challenges, we feel the need for a profound conversion and the urgency of reviving our faith in Him.  Only in this way can we serve our neighbours in charity!  Every day, we are called to renew our trust in Christ and to be inspired by his life in order to fulfill our mission, because Jesus is the first and the greatest evangelizer.  In every form of evangelization, the focus is always on God who chose to call us to collaborate with Him and to inspire us with the strength of his Spirit (Evangelii gaudium, 12).

Dear brothers, I encourage you to continue with joy and hope along your journey, devoting yourselves with all your hearts and with all your strength so that the charism of your Founder may bear fruit in abundance in our times.  He loved to say that the call of the apostles is not reserved to a few, but is offered to all, regardless of a person's state, condition, profession, fortune, all people can take part (Complete Works, IV, p. 346).  The Union of the Catholic Apostolate, which is the bearer of the charism of Saint Vincent Pallotti, offers many spaces and opens new horizons for participating in the mission of the Church.  For this reason, you are called to work with renewed vigour to reawaken the faith and to rekindle charity, especially among the most vulnerable, spiritually and materially poor of populations.  In this regard, you are sustained by the example of many of your confreres, authentic witnesses of the gospel, who have dedicated their lives to the service of others.  I have experienced this during my own pastoral service in Argentina and I still have many good memories of them.

You can help those you meet in your ministry to rediscover the immense love of God in our lives.  In the footsteps of Saint Vincent Pallotti, may you be considered a miracle of God's mercy.  He wrote: O my Jesus, in you shines the incomprehensible excess of your infinite love and your infinite mercy (Complete Works, XIII, p. 169).

I confide all of you to the protection of Mary, most Holy, who Saint Vincent Pallotti venerated in a particular way as the Queen of Apostles.  Her good example of apostolic zeal and perfect charity invites us to pray constantly, invoking the gifts of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles of our times, so that her Son's gospel might be proclaimed in every corner of the world.  I too confide myself to your prayer, and while I wish you abundant and fruitful work during your Assembly, I willingly impart my Apostolic blessing upon all of you.

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