At 11:30am this morning (5:30am EST) in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) and the Sisters Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa (White Sisters) on the occasion of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Missionaries of Africa and the Congregation of the Sisters Missionaries of Africa.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I welcome you with joy on the occasion of the celebration of 150 years since the foundation of the Society of the Missionaries of Africa and of the Congregation of Sisters Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa. I thank you Superiors General for the words they have offered me, and I wish to express my cordial greetings and my spiritual closeness to you and, through you, to all the embers of your Institutions, present in Africa and in other regions of the world. Thank you for your service to the mission of the Church, which you give with passion and generosity, in faithfulness to the evangelical intuitions of your common founder, Cardinal Lavigerie.
Over the past three years, you have prepared for the celebration of this jubilee. As members of the great Lavignerie family, you have returned to your roots and you have examined your history with gratitude in order to set out and to live your present commitment with renewed passion for the gospel and to be sowers of hope. together with you, I give thanks to God, not only for the gifts he has given to the Church through your Institutions, but also and above all for the faithfulness of his love, which you celebrate in this jubilee. May this jubilee year strengthen within you the certainty that God is worthy of faith; from him you have been called to communion with his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord (1 Cor 1:9). In this way, may your consecration, your ministry concretely demonstrate, in your fraternal life and in your various commitments, the faithfulness of God's love and of his closeness, in order to sow seeds of hope in the hearts of all those who are wounded, tried, discouraged and those who often feel abandoned.
Dear friends, you know that when Monsignor Lavigerie, then Archbishop of Algeria, was led by the Spirit to found the Society of the Missionaries of Africa, and then the Congregation of the Sisters Missionaries, he had within his heart a passion for the gospel and a desire to proclaim it to all people, thus being everything to everyone (cf 1 Cor 9:22). For this reason, your roots are marked by the mission ad extra: and in your DNA. So it is that in the footsteps of your Founder, your first preoccupation, your holy restlessness is that many of our brothers are living without the strength, light and consolation of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to welcome them, without a horizon that provides meaning in their lives (Evangelii gaudium, 49). But, in the light of the journey made up to now from the date of your foundation, you know that the proclamation of the gospel is not synonymous with proselytism; it is that dynamic that leads us to be close to others to share the gift received, the encounter of love that changed your life and led you to choose to consecrate your life to the Lord Jesus and to the gospel for the life and salvation of world. It is always for him, with him and in him that the mission is lived. Therefore, I encourage you to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, so as never to forget that the true missionary is above all a disciple. Take care to cultivate the particular bond that unites you to the Lord, by listening to his Word, the celebration of the sacraments and the service of your brothers and sisters, so that your actions may manifest his presence, his merciful love, his compassion for those to whom the Spirit sends you and leads you. May the celebration of your jubilee help you become nomads for the Gospel, men and women who are not afraid to go to the deserts of this world and to seek together the means to accompany your brothers and sisters to the oasis which is the Lord, so that the living water of his love can extinguish their thirst.
I hope that this jubilee year will also contribute to the development of fraternal ties between you, so that the proclamation of the gospel may not be experienced except by the grace of authentic missionary communion. With the strength of the Holy Spirit, be witnesses of hope that do not mislead others (cf Rom 5:5), regardless of the difficulties you face. In fidelity to your roots, do not be afraid to risk everything you have on the path of the mission, in order to bear witness to the fact that God is always new, that he is continually motivated to begin again and to change places in order to go beyond that which is known, toward the periphery of every frontier (Gaudete et exultate, 135). May the Holy Spirit make of you builders of bridges between men of good will. Wherever the Lord has sent you, may you contribute to the growth of a culture of encounter, being at the service of dialogue that, while respecting differences, is able to respect the riches of diversity between others. And I thank you in particular for the work that you have already accomplished in favour of dialogue with Islam, with our Muslim sisters and brothers. With the style and the simplicity of your way of life, you also demonstrate the necessity of taking care of our common home, the earth. Finally, in the footsteps of Cardinal Lavigerie, you are called to sow hope, fighting against all today's forms of slavery; making you close to the little ones and to the poor, to those who wait, in the suburbs of our society, to be recognized in their dignity, to be welcomed, protected, raised, accompanied, promoted and integrated.
With this hope, I confide you to the Lord, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Africa. I impart to all of you the Apostolic blessing, and to all the members of your Community, and I invoke the blessing of God upon those with whom you share your lives, wherever the Lord has sent you. And, please, I ask you to pray for me. Thank you.
(Original text in Italian)
Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the Missionaries of Africa and the
Sisters Missionaries of Africa
Dear brothers and sisters,
I welcome you with joy on the occasion of the celebration of 150 years since the foundation of the Society of the Missionaries of Africa and of the Congregation of Sisters Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa. I thank you Superiors General for the words they have offered me, and I wish to express my cordial greetings and my spiritual closeness to you and, through you, to all the embers of your Institutions, present in Africa and in other regions of the world. Thank you for your service to the mission of the Church, which you give with passion and generosity, in faithfulness to the evangelical intuitions of your common founder, Cardinal Lavigerie.
Over the past three years, you have prepared for the celebration of this jubilee. As members of the great Lavignerie family, you have returned to your roots and you have examined your history with gratitude in order to set out and to live your present commitment with renewed passion for the gospel and to be sowers of hope. together with you, I give thanks to God, not only for the gifts he has given to the Church through your Institutions, but also and above all for the faithfulness of his love, which you celebrate in this jubilee. May this jubilee year strengthen within you the certainty that God is worthy of faith; from him you have been called to communion with his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord (1 Cor 1:9). In this way, may your consecration, your ministry concretely demonstrate, in your fraternal life and in your various commitments, the faithfulness of God's love and of his closeness, in order to sow seeds of hope in the hearts of all those who are wounded, tried, discouraged and those who often feel abandoned.
Dear friends, you know that when Monsignor Lavigerie, then Archbishop of Algeria, was led by the Spirit to found the Society of the Missionaries of Africa, and then the Congregation of the Sisters Missionaries, he had within his heart a passion for the gospel and a desire to proclaim it to all people, thus being everything to everyone (cf 1 Cor 9:22). For this reason, your roots are marked by the mission ad extra: and in your DNA. So it is that in the footsteps of your Founder, your first preoccupation, your holy restlessness is that many of our brothers are living without the strength, light and consolation of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to welcome them, without a horizon that provides meaning in their lives (Evangelii gaudium, 49). But, in the light of the journey made up to now from the date of your foundation, you know that the proclamation of the gospel is not synonymous with proselytism; it is that dynamic that leads us to be close to others to share the gift received, the encounter of love that changed your life and led you to choose to consecrate your life to the Lord Jesus and to the gospel for the life and salvation of world. It is always for him, with him and in him that the mission is lived. Therefore, I encourage you to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, so as never to forget that the true missionary is above all a disciple. Take care to cultivate the particular bond that unites you to the Lord, by listening to his Word, the celebration of the sacraments and the service of your brothers and sisters, so that your actions may manifest his presence, his merciful love, his compassion for those to whom the Spirit sends you and leads you. May the celebration of your jubilee help you become nomads for the Gospel, men and women who are not afraid to go to the deserts of this world and to seek together the means to accompany your brothers and sisters to the oasis which is the Lord, so that the living water of his love can extinguish their thirst.
I hope that this jubilee year will also contribute to the development of fraternal ties between you, so that the proclamation of the gospel may not be experienced except by the grace of authentic missionary communion. With the strength of the Holy Spirit, be witnesses of hope that do not mislead others (cf Rom 5:5), regardless of the difficulties you face. In fidelity to your roots, do not be afraid to risk everything you have on the path of the mission, in order to bear witness to the fact that God is always new, that he is continually motivated to begin again and to change places in order to go beyond that which is known, toward the periphery of every frontier (Gaudete et exultate, 135). May the Holy Spirit make of you builders of bridges between men of good will. Wherever the Lord has sent you, may you contribute to the growth of a culture of encounter, being at the service of dialogue that, while respecting differences, is able to respect the riches of diversity between others. And I thank you in particular for the work that you have already accomplished in favour of dialogue with Islam, with our Muslim sisters and brothers. With the style and the simplicity of your way of life, you also demonstrate the necessity of taking care of our common home, the earth. Finally, in the footsteps of Cardinal Lavigerie, you are called to sow hope, fighting against all today's forms of slavery; making you close to the little ones and to the poor, to those who wait, in the suburbs of our society, to be recognized in their dignity, to be welcomed, protected, raised, accompanied, promoted and integrated.
With this hope, I confide you to the Lord, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Africa. I impart to all of you the Apostolic blessing, and to all the members of your Community, and I invoke the blessing of God upon those with whom you share your lives, wherever the Lord has sent you. And, please, I ask you to pray for me. Thank you.
(Original text in Italian)
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