At 9:30am today, the Holy Father received in audience the Bishops from the Episcopal Conference of Lithuania and Estonia who are in Rome for their visit ad Limina Apostolorum.
Our meeting permits us to strengthen the links of fraternity that unite us, even from a distance, since we share the Episcopal vocation and service to the people of God.
The Lord has chosen you to work in a society that, after having long been oppressed by a regime that was founded on ideologies contrary to human dignity and freedom, today is called to compete with other dangerous pitfalls such as secularism and relativism. While this may make your pastoral action more difficult, I encourage you to continue your tireless efforts, never losing faith, in order to proclaim the gospel of Christ, the saving word for the men and women of every time and culture.
You are not alone in this renewed evangelization. You have your priests, who although they are few and from various origins, stand beside you with respect, obedience and generosity. Together with them, you know the urgency of pastoral vocations which, relying on prayer offered to the Lord of the harvest, that he may send workers into the harvest (Mt 9:38), may direct the awareness of families, parishes and entire Christian communities, so that children and young people are guided to make themselves available to the call of the Lord.
Still thinking about priests, I encourage you to pay particular attention to their formation, both at the level of theological and ecclesial preparation, and at the level of human maturity, rooted in solid spirituality and characterized by cordial openness and an ability for discernment of the realities in the world in which we live.
For the growth and the journey of your communities has never been more precious, as is the presence of men and women of consecrated life. Especially during this Year dedicated to them, it is an opportune time to help them understand that they are not appreciated only for the service they provide, but even more for the intrinsic richness of their charisms and their witness, for the mere fact that they are, that they diffuse among the people of God the perfume of Christ as they follow the path of the evangelical counsels. However, the Consecrated too need to be supported, both spiritually and materially, including through community celebrations and timely opportunities for encounters and for moments of intense spirituality, in order to promote reciprocal familiarity and understanding, and in order to strengthen, around the Bishop, a sense of belonging to the particular Church and knowing the joy of availability and collaboration in the work of building it up.
The involvement of the lay faithful is also indispensable for the mission of evangelization. Thanks to God, you can count on the commitment of many good Catholics, in a variety of ecclesial activities. Your closeness and concern helps them to carry out their responsibilities according to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, for they are called to do this in the fields of culture, society, politics and also in charitable work and catechesis. Entrusted to you is the task of watching over and stimulating them so that at the diocesan and parochial level, as well as in the Associations and ecclesial Movements, they will be able to form their consciences and deepen their sense of the Church, in particular their knowledge of her Social Doctrine. The lay faithful are the living means between what we Pastors preach and the different social environments. They must always feel that the heart of the Church is close to them!
At the same time, it is through them that you are in daily contact with the other Christian traditions present in your land, and together you can sustain the ecumenical dialogue, which is so necessary today, also in view of that social peace that is sometimes shaken by ethnic and linguistic differences.
I also wish to share with you the firm will to promote the family as a gift of God for the fulfilment of man and woman created in his image and as a fundamental cell of society, a place where one learns to coexist in difference and to belong to others and where the parents transmit the faith to their children (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 66). Instead we must confirm that today, marriage is often considered as a form of affective gratification which can be constituted in many different ways and modified according to each one’s sensibility (cf EG, 66). Unfortunately such a minimalist concept also influences the mentality of Christians, causing facility in taking recourse to divorce or de facto separation. We, Pastors, are called to question ourselves about the preparation we offer to engaged young people in preparation for marriage and also about how to assist all those who live in these situations, so that the children do not become the first victims and the spouses not feel excluded from God’s mercy and the solicitude of the Church, but that they are helped on their journey of faith and able to provide for the Christian education of the children.
The economic and social crisis that has also assailed your countries has, unfortunately, fostered emigration, so that single-parent families are often found in your communities, and they are often in need of special pastoral care. The absence of the father or the mother from many families entails greater effort for the other spouse for the growth of the children in all senses. Your care and the pastoral charity of your priests, united with the active closeness of the communities, is truly precious for these families.
Dear Brothers, in all your ministry I would like you to feel my affection and support, as I also feel consoled by your fraternal charity, witnessed by this visit. While I thank you for the prayers that you and your communities raise to the Lord for me and for my service to the Church, I entrust you to the maternal intercession of Mary Most Holy and to the protection of Saint Meinard, and with all my heart I bless you, the priests, the men and women Religious and all the lay faithful entrusted to your pastoral care.
Address of His Holiness, Pope Francis
to the Bishops of Lithuania and Estonia
Dear brothers in the Episcopate,
I welcome you with joy on the occasion of your visit ad limina Apostolorum; I cordially greet each of you and the particular Churches that the Lord has confided to your pastoral guidance.
Our meeting permits us to strengthen the links of fraternity that unite us, even from a distance, since we share the Episcopal vocation and service to the people of God.
The Lord has chosen you to work in a society that, after having long been oppressed by a regime that was founded on ideologies contrary to human dignity and freedom, today is called to compete with other dangerous pitfalls such as secularism and relativism. While this may make your pastoral action more difficult, I encourage you to continue your tireless efforts, never losing faith, in order to proclaim the gospel of Christ, the saving word for the men and women of every time and culture.
You are not alone in this renewed evangelization. You have your priests, who although they are few and from various origins, stand beside you with respect, obedience and generosity. Together with them, you know the urgency of pastoral vocations which, relying on prayer offered to the Lord of the harvest, that he may send workers into the harvest (Mt 9:38), may direct the awareness of families, parishes and entire Christian communities, so that children and young people are guided to make themselves available to the call of the Lord.
Still thinking about priests, I encourage you to pay particular attention to their formation, both at the level of theological and ecclesial preparation, and at the level of human maturity, rooted in solid spirituality and characterized by cordial openness and an ability for discernment of the realities in the world in which we live.
For the growth and the journey of your communities has never been more precious, as is the presence of men and women of consecrated life. Especially during this Year dedicated to them, it is an opportune time to help them understand that they are not appreciated only for the service they provide, but even more for the intrinsic richness of their charisms and their witness, for the mere fact that they are, that they diffuse among the people of God the perfume of Christ as they follow the path of the evangelical counsels. However, the Consecrated too need to be supported, both spiritually and materially, including through community celebrations and timely opportunities for encounters and for moments of intense spirituality, in order to promote reciprocal familiarity and understanding, and in order to strengthen, around the Bishop, a sense of belonging to the particular Church and knowing the joy of availability and collaboration in the work of building it up.
The involvement of the lay faithful is also indispensable for the mission of evangelization. Thanks to God, you can count on the commitment of many good Catholics, in a variety of ecclesial activities. Your closeness and concern helps them to carry out their responsibilities according to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, for they are called to do this in the fields of culture, society, politics and also in charitable work and catechesis. Entrusted to you is the task of watching over and stimulating them so that at the diocesan and parochial level, as well as in the Associations and ecclesial Movements, they will be able to form their consciences and deepen their sense of the Church, in particular their knowledge of her Social Doctrine. The lay faithful are the living means between what we Pastors preach and the different social environments. They must always feel that the heart of the Church is close to them!
At the same time, it is through them that you are in daily contact with the other Christian traditions present in your land, and together you can sustain the ecumenical dialogue, which is so necessary today, also in view of that social peace that is sometimes shaken by ethnic and linguistic differences.
I also wish to share with you the firm will to promote the family as a gift of God for the fulfilment of man and woman created in his image and as a fundamental cell of society, a place where one learns to coexist in difference and to belong to others and where the parents transmit the faith to their children (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 66). Instead we must confirm that today, marriage is often considered as a form of affective gratification which can be constituted in many different ways and modified according to each one’s sensibility (cf EG, 66). Unfortunately such a minimalist concept also influences the mentality of Christians, causing facility in taking recourse to divorce or de facto separation. We, Pastors, are called to question ourselves about the preparation we offer to engaged young people in preparation for marriage and also about how to assist all those who live in these situations, so that the children do not become the first victims and the spouses not feel excluded from God’s mercy and the solicitude of the Church, but that they are helped on their journey of faith and able to provide for the Christian education of the children.
The economic and social crisis that has also assailed your countries has, unfortunately, fostered emigration, so that single-parent families are often found in your communities, and they are often in need of special pastoral care. The absence of the father or the mother from many families entails greater effort for the other spouse for the growth of the children in all senses. Your care and the pastoral charity of your priests, united with the active closeness of the communities, is truly precious for these families.
Dear Brothers, in all your ministry I would like you to feel my affection and support, as I also feel consoled by your fraternal charity, witnessed by this visit. While I thank you for the prayers that you and your communities raise to the Lord for me and for my service to the Church, I entrust you to the maternal intercession of Mary Most Holy and to the protection of Saint Meinard, and with all my heart I bless you, the priests, the men and women Religious and all the lay faithful entrusted to your pastoral care.
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