At 12:15pm today (6:15am EDT), in the Consistory Hall at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience a group of widows who are participating in the International Convention for Consecrated Widows.
Dear friends,
With joy, I welcome you on the occasion of your pilgrimage to Rome. I thank you for your presentation and I express my cordial greeting to the members of the Fraternité Notre Dame de la Résurrection and the Communauté Anne la Prophetesse, who are present today in different countries, as well as to the priests who accompany you, and, through you, to all people who are grieving the death of their spouses.
Widowhood is a particularly difficult experience ... Some show that they know how to pour their energies with even more dedication into their children and grandchildren, finding in this expression of love a new educational mission (Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, 254). If this is true of most of you, the death of your spouse has also led you to recognize a particular call of the Lord and to respond by consecrating yourselves to Him out of love. Together with you I give thanks to God for the fidelity of his love that unites each of you, beyond the limits of death, to your spouses and for Him who has called and consecrated you to live today by following Christ in chastity, obedience and poverty. Sometimes life presents greater challenges and through these the Lord invites us to new conversions that allow his grace to manifest itself better in our existence in order to give us a share in his holiness (Hebrews 12:10) (Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et exsultate, 17). Thus, with your consecration, you attest that it is possible, with the grace of God and the support and accompaniment of ministers and other members of the Church, to live the evangelical counsels by exercising their family, professional and social responsibilities.
Your consecration in widowhood is a gift that the Lord gives to his Church to remind all the baptized that the power of his merciful love is a path of life and holiness, which allows us to overcome trials and be reborn to hope and to the joy of the Gospel. Therefore, I invite you to keep your gaze fixed on Jesus Christ and to cultivate the particular bond that unites you to Him because it is there, in the heart to heart conversations with the Lord, listening to his word, that we draw the courage and perseverance we need to give ourselves body and soul to others, to offer the best of ourselves through our consecration and our commitments (see GE, 25).
May you, through your sacramental life, bear witness to the love of God which is for everyone, for we are all called to recognize the beauty and happiness of being loved by him. United to Jesus Christ, be leaven in the dough of this world, light for those who walk in darkness and in the shadow of death. With the quality of your fraternal life, within your communities, take care, through the experience of your own frailty, to be close to the little ones and to the poor, to show them the tenderness of God and his closeness in love. In this perspective, I encourage you to live your consecration in daily life with simplicity and humility, invoking the Holy Spirit to help you to witness, within the Church and the world to the fact that God can act under any circumstances, even in the midst of apparent failures in and through all those who offer themselves and give themselves to God out of love; they will certainly be fruitful (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 279).
With this hope, I entrust you to the Lord and, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, I impart to you my Apostolic Blessing, which I extend to those who are part of the Fraternité Notre Dame de la Résurrection and the Communauté Anne la Prophetesse. And please, pray for me and know that I pray for you. Thank you!
(Original text in Italian; this text is also available in French)
Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
addressed to Consecrated Widows
Dear friends,
With joy, I welcome you on the occasion of your pilgrimage to Rome. I thank you for your presentation and I express my cordial greeting to the members of the Fraternité Notre Dame de la Résurrection and the Communauté Anne la Prophetesse, who are present today in different countries, as well as to the priests who accompany you, and, through you, to all people who are grieving the death of their spouses.
Widowhood is a particularly difficult experience ... Some show that they know how to pour their energies with even more dedication into their children and grandchildren, finding in this expression of love a new educational mission (Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, 254). If this is true of most of you, the death of your spouse has also led you to recognize a particular call of the Lord and to respond by consecrating yourselves to Him out of love. Together with you I give thanks to God for the fidelity of his love that unites each of you, beyond the limits of death, to your spouses and for Him who has called and consecrated you to live today by following Christ in chastity, obedience and poverty. Sometimes life presents greater challenges and through these the Lord invites us to new conversions that allow his grace to manifest itself better in our existence in order to give us a share in his holiness (Hebrews 12:10) (Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et exsultate, 17). Thus, with your consecration, you attest that it is possible, with the grace of God and the support and accompaniment of ministers and other members of the Church, to live the evangelical counsels by exercising their family, professional and social responsibilities.
Your consecration in widowhood is a gift that the Lord gives to his Church to remind all the baptized that the power of his merciful love is a path of life and holiness, which allows us to overcome trials and be reborn to hope and to the joy of the Gospel. Therefore, I invite you to keep your gaze fixed on Jesus Christ and to cultivate the particular bond that unites you to Him because it is there, in the heart to heart conversations with the Lord, listening to his word, that we draw the courage and perseverance we need to give ourselves body and soul to others, to offer the best of ourselves through our consecration and our commitments (see GE, 25).
May you, through your sacramental life, bear witness to the love of God which is for everyone, for we are all called to recognize the beauty and happiness of being loved by him. United to Jesus Christ, be leaven in the dough of this world, light for those who walk in darkness and in the shadow of death. With the quality of your fraternal life, within your communities, take care, through the experience of your own frailty, to be close to the little ones and to the poor, to show them the tenderness of God and his closeness in love. In this perspective, I encourage you to live your consecration in daily life with simplicity and humility, invoking the Holy Spirit to help you to witness, within the Church and the world to the fact that God can act under any circumstances, even in the midst of apparent failures in and through all those who offer themselves and give themselves to God out of love; they will certainly be fruitful (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 279).
With this hope, I entrust you to the Lord and, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, I impart to you my Apostolic Blessing, which I extend to those who are part of the Fraternité Notre Dame de la Résurrection and the Communauté Anne la Prophetesse. And please, pray for me and know that I pray for you. Thank you!
(Original text in Italian; this text is also available in French)
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