At 11:20am this morning (5:20am EDT), inside the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience the members of the Abraham Community on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of that Community.
Dear friends,
Thank you for the joy you demonstrate! Showing joy is a grace of God. We thank the Lord who has sown so much joy in your hearts. I am happy to meet you thirty years after the foundation of your community. The Lord never ceases to surprise us by opening new paths for following Jesus, with the creativity of the Holy Spirit. I thank you for the words you have addressed to me. You are a young community, and for this reason you carry within you the characteristic enthusiasm of those who wish to share the beauty of having met Christ in their lives.
You have a challenging name: Abraham, which inspires the path of evangelization that you are called to carry out in the most diverse conditions you come to visit. Do not be afraid to inspire your lives and actions precisely with the great patriarch Abraham, our father in faith. He teaches you, first of all, to obey the Lord's call. It doesn't matter in what way and under what circumstances the Lord makes himself present in your life. The Lord is creative, he is the Lord of surprises: just when we do not expect it, he comes and shows us different, original paths. He - and He alone! - knows the places and times in which to meet each one of us. What is important is to listen to his voice. In order to perceive his word, the silence of listening is necessary. You are, I would say, quite noisy when you are together, but the good noise, that of the Holy Spirit, comes from the silence of listening. If there is not the silence of listening, no noise can be an anointed noise from the power of the Holy Spirit. As a great bishop, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, wrote to the first Christian generations of Ephesus: The Father spoke a word, and it was his Son, and he always speaks in eternal silence, and in silence he must be heard. I wish you the grace of always knowing how to find moments of true silence in your life; this is the secret to being able to listen to God who is speaking: silence.
Abraham's faith led him to leave his land and his home to go to a place that he did not know, but which was guaranteed by the promise of God. To be evangelizers you must trust God and be ready to leave, to go out, but not just once, but rather to take on an exodus style. But we can also think of Moses, the same thing ... Think of Saint Joseph: I believe that Saint Joseph was afraid of falling asleep at the end of his life because every time he fell asleep he had changed his plans! This style of exodus. It is important to go out to meet those who the Lord puts on our way.
When the apostle Peter wrote his first letter, he turned to young communities, who were perhaps even a little fearful of expressing their faith; yet he urged them to give a reason for the hope received from Christ. He urged us to always do it with meekness and respect, with a right conscience (1 Pt 3: 15-16). The meekness that the Holy Spirit gives us makes us witnesses, because the path of the Holy Spirit is not proselytism, it is about witness. If someone comes to proselytize, it is not the Church, it is a sect. The Church that wants the Lord, as Pope Benedict XVI said, does not grow through proselytism, it grows through attraction, that is, the attraction of witness, and behind the witness there is always the Holy Spirit. Here is a methodology that we are called to live in the work of evangelization. We need to walk together with the people of our time, listen to what they carry in their hearts, to offer them, with our lives, the most credible answer, that is, the one that comes from God, through Jesus Christ. To me it is always good to listen to that advice that Saint Francis of Assisi gave to the friars when he sent them out to evangelize: Go, announce the Gospel, if it were necessary also with words. First with the testimony; then they ask you: But why are you so?, and then it is time to talk.
Abraham's faith was fruitful beyond all human expectation. And he saw his fulfillment in Jesus, through a humble daughter of Abraham, the Virgin Mary, in whom Christ reflected his Here I am to the Father. You too help by being docile to the action of the Holy Spirit, and so your testimony and your enthusiasm will be an effective tool in the service of the Gospel. Go forward, forward in faith and charity, above all towards those who are more marginalized and poor, always trusting in the promise of God.
I am accompanying you with my blessing. And you, please, don't forget to pray for m: I need your prayers, because this work is not easy! Thank you!
Testo originale nella lingua italiana
Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
addressed to members of the Abraham Community
Dear friends,
Thank you for the joy you demonstrate! Showing joy is a grace of God. We thank the Lord who has sown so much joy in your hearts. I am happy to meet you thirty years after the foundation of your community. The Lord never ceases to surprise us by opening new paths for following Jesus, with the creativity of the Holy Spirit. I thank you for the words you have addressed to me. You are a young community, and for this reason you carry within you the characteristic enthusiasm of those who wish to share the beauty of having met Christ in their lives.
You have a challenging name: Abraham, which inspires the path of evangelization that you are called to carry out in the most diverse conditions you come to visit. Do not be afraid to inspire your lives and actions precisely with the great patriarch Abraham, our father in faith. He teaches you, first of all, to obey the Lord's call. It doesn't matter in what way and under what circumstances the Lord makes himself present in your life. The Lord is creative, he is the Lord of surprises: just when we do not expect it, he comes and shows us different, original paths. He - and He alone! - knows the places and times in which to meet each one of us. What is important is to listen to his voice. In order to perceive his word, the silence of listening is necessary. You are, I would say, quite noisy when you are together, but the good noise, that of the Holy Spirit, comes from the silence of listening. If there is not the silence of listening, no noise can be an anointed noise from the power of the Holy Spirit. As a great bishop, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, wrote to the first Christian generations of Ephesus: The Father spoke a word, and it was his Son, and he always speaks in eternal silence, and in silence he must be heard. I wish you the grace of always knowing how to find moments of true silence in your life; this is the secret to being able to listen to God who is speaking: silence.
Abraham's faith led him to leave his land and his home to go to a place that he did not know, but which was guaranteed by the promise of God. To be evangelizers you must trust God and be ready to leave, to go out, but not just once, but rather to take on an exodus style. But we can also think of Moses, the same thing ... Think of Saint Joseph: I believe that Saint Joseph was afraid of falling asleep at the end of his life because every time he fell asleep he had changed his plans! This style of exodus. It is important to go out to meet those who the Lord puts on our way.
When the apostle Peter wrote his first letter, he turned to young communities, who were perhaps even a little fearful of expressing their faith; yet he urged them to give a reason for the hope received from Christ. He urged us to always do it with meekness and respect, with a right conscience (1 Pt 3: 15-16). The meekness that the Holy Spirit gives us makes us witnesses, because the path of the Holy Spirit is not proselytism, it is about witness. If someone comes to proselytize, it is not the Church, it is a sect. The Church that wants the Lord, as Pope Benedict XVI said, does not grow through proselytism, it grows through attraction, that is, the attraction of witness, and behind the witness there is always the Holy Spirit. Here is a methodology that we are called to live in the work of evangelization. We need to walk together with the people of our time, listen to what they carry in their hearts, to offer them, with our lives, the most credible answer, that is, the one that comes from God, through Jesus Christ. To me it is always good to listen to that advice that Saint Francis of Assisi gave to the friars when he sent them out to evangelize: Go, announce the Gospel, if it were necessary also with words. First with the testimony; then they ask you: But why are you so?, and then it is time to talk.
Abraham's faith was fruitful beyond all human expectation. And he saw his fulfillment in Jesus, through a humble daughter of Abraham, the Virgin Mary, in whom Christ reflected his Here I am to the Father. You too help by being docile to the action of the Holy Spirit, and so your testimony and your enthusiasm will be an effective tool in the service of the Gospel. Go forward, forward in faith and charity, above all towards those who are more marginalized and poor, always trusting in the promise of God.
I am accompanying you with my blessing. And you, please, don't forget to pray for m: I need your prayers, because this work is not easy! Thank you!
Testo originale nella lingua italiana
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