At 10:20am this morning (4:20am EDT), in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience those who are participating in the General Chapter of the Order of Saint Augustine (Augustinians).
Dear brothers,
I welcome all of you, gathered here in Rome for your General Chapter, and I thank your Prior General for his words.
In this Chapter, you have proposed facing the most important challenges of the moment, in the light of the Word of God, the Magisterium of the Church and your great Father Augustine.
You are well aware of the fact that communities of consecrated persons are places where you seek to live the experience of God starting from a strong interiority and in communion with the brothers. Here is the first, basic challenge that calls upon the consecrated person and which I wish to entrust to you in particular today: to enter together into the experience of God in order to be able to show God to this world in a clear, courageous way, without compromise or hesitation. This is a great responsibility!
I recall the words of Saint Paul VI in the stupendous Exhortation Evangelica Testificatio: The tradition of the Church - is it necessary to remember it? - offers us, from the beginning, this privileged testimony of a constant search for God, of a unique and undivided love for Christ, of an absolute dedication to the growth of his kingdom. Without this concrete sign, the charity that animates the entire Church would risk being cooled down, the saving paradox of the Gospel to be blunted, the 'salt' of faith to be diluted in a world that is in a phase of secularization (ET, 3). At that time it was undergoing secularization, today it is totally secularized.
You Augustinians have been called to bear witness to that warm, living, visible, contagious charity of the Church, through a community life that clearly shows the presence of the Risen Christ and his Spirit. Unity in charity - as your Constitutions also well explain - is a central point of Saint Augustine's experience and spirituality and a foundation of all Augustinian life. In this perspective, in the Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et exsultate I wanted to recall that sublime spiritual encounter that Saint Augustine and his mother Saint Monica (GE, 142) lived together: a moment in which their souls merged in the intuition of divine wisdom. We always reread it with emotion on the liturgical Memorial of Santa Monica. That desire of the Saint who in the end had what she was looking for, and even more. That cumulatius hoc mihi Deus meus prestitit (Saint Augustine, Confessions, IX, 11). This should encourage us to move forward.
But - I immediately added - these experiences are not the most frequent thing, nor the most important. Community life [...] is made up of many small daily details [...]. The community that preserves the small details of love, where the members take care of each other and constitute an open and evangelizing space, is the place of the presence of the Risen One who is sanctifying it according to the Father's plan (GE, 143,145 ).
Certainly, to keep this flame of fraternal charity alive will not be possible without that in Deum of your Rule: Primum, propter quod in unum estis congregati, ut unanimes habitetis in domo et sit vobis anima un et cor unum in Deum (Rule, 3). That is prosthesis towards God. This addition to the expression of the Acts of the Apostles is proper to Augustine, to emphasize that it is the deep dynamism of your communities, the first great source from which all your service to the Church and to humanity springs. Soul una et cor unum is born from this perennial Source: in Deum. Your hearts always reaching out to God. Always! Each member of the community should be directed, as the first holy purpose of every day, to the search for God, or to let himself be searched by God. This direction should be declared, confessed and witnessed among you without false modesty. The search for God cannot be obscured by other purposes, although generous and apostolic. Because that is your first apostolate. We are here - you should be able to say every day among yourselves - because we walk towards God. And because God is Love, we walk towards Him in love.
As the dear father Agostino Trapé wrote: According to the Rule, charity is not only the end and the means of religious life, but it is also its centre: from charity it must proceed and charity must be oriented, with a perennial movement of circular causality, every thought, every affection, every attitude, every action (St. Augustine, The Rule, Milan 1971 Anchor, p. 137).
Writing to St. Jerome, Saint Augustine expressed his own experience of community in this way: I confess that I find it very natural to abandon myself entirely to the affection of such people, especially when I am oppressed by the scandals of the world: in their heart I find rest, free of concern, being convinced that there is God in it (Letters 73,10). And before the scandals of the Church or even the scandals of your family, peace is on this path. Go back to this ... and the scandals fall, by themselves, because they show that there is no other way, this is the path.
It is good to return often to that meditation which Augustine gave to his faithful, on the First Letter of John, where the Church is called by him mater charitas, a mother who cries for the division of children and calls and calls for unity of charity : If you want to know if you have received the Spirit, ask your heart, so as not to run the risk of having the sacrament but not the effect of it. Ask your heart and if there is charity towards your brother, be calm. There can be no love without the Spirit of God, because Paul cries out: "The love of God has been spread in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Rom 5: 5) (Letters, VI,10).
Your Constitutions recall this fraternal charity a prophetic sign, and their warning is wise when they say: We will not be able to accomplish all this unless we take our cross of every day for love of Christ, with humility and meekness. The cross is the measure of love, always. It is true that one can love without the cross, when there is no cross, but when there is the cross, the way in which I take the cross is the measure of love. That is the truth.
Let us return to Augustinian meditation in order to hear from him, your father and guide, which is ultimately the way of charitatis: The Lord says: 'I give you a new commandment, love one another' (Jn 13:34) ... But what is the perfection of love? It is also loving our enemies and loving them so that they become brothers ... Thus he loved the one who, hanging on the cross, said: 'Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing' (Lk 23:34) ... When he was nailed to the cross, he walked precisely on this path, which is the path of charity (Letters, I, 9).
Dear brothers, this is also the challenge and responsibility for you today: to live in your communities in such a way as to share the experience of God together and to be able to show it as being alive in the world: the experience of the Lord, as He is, as He seeks us every day! May Mary, mother of Jesus and a luminous figure of the Church, accompany you and protect you always. I cordially bless you, and I ask you, please, to pray for me. Thank you.
Testo originale nella lingua italiana
Texto en español
Greetings of His Holiness, Pope Francis
offered to the Augustinians
Dear brothers,
I welcome all of you, gathered here in Rome for your General Chapter, and I thank your Prior General for his words.
In this Chapter, you have proposed facing the most important challenges of the moment, in the light of the Word of God, the Magisterium of the Church and your great Father Augustine.
You are well aware of the fact that communities of consecrated persons are places where you seek to live the experience of God starting from a strong interiority and in communion with the brothers. Here is the first, basic challenge that calls upon the consecrated person and which I wish to entrust to you in particular today: to enter together into the experience of God in order to be able to show God to this world in a clear, courageous way, without compromise or hesitation. This is a great responsibility!
I recall the words of Saint Paul VI in the stupendous Exhortation Evangelica Testificatio: The tradition of the Church - is it necessary to remember it? - offers us, from the beginning, this privileged testimony of a constant search for God, of a unique and undivided love for Christ, of an absolute dedication to the growth of his kingdom. Without this concrete sign, the charity that animates the entire Church would risk being cooled down, the saving paradox of the Gospel to be blunted, the 'salt' of faith to be diluted in a world that is in a phase of secularization (ET, 3). At that time it was undergoing secularization, today it is totally secularized.
You Augustinians have been called to bear witness to that warm, living, visible, contagious charity of the Church, through a community life that clearly shows the presence of the Risen Christ and his Spirit. Unity in charity - as your Constitutions also well explain - is a central point of Saint Augustine's experience and spirituality and a foundation of all Augustinian life. In this perspective, in the Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et exsultate I wanted to recall that sublime spiritual encounter that Saint Augustine and his mother Saint Monica (GE, 142) lived together: a moment in which their souls merged in the intuition of divine wisdom. We always reread it with emotion on the liturgical Memorial of Santa Monica. That desire of the Saint who in the end had what she was looking for, and even more. That cumulatius hoc mihi Deus meus prestitit (Saint Augustine, Confessions, IX, 11). This should encourage us to move forward.
But - I immediately added - these experiences are not the most frequent thing, nor the most important. Community life [...] is made up of many small daily details [...]. The community that preserves the small details of love, where the members take care of each other and constitute an open and evangelizing space, is the place of the presence of the Risen One who is sanctifying it according to the Father's plan (GE, 143,145 ).
Certainly, to keep this flame of fraternal charity alive will not be possible without that in Deum of your Rule: Primum, propter quod in unum estis congregati, ut unanimes habitetis in domo et sit vobis anima un et cor unum in Deum (Rule, 3). That is prosthesis towards God. This addition to the expression of the Acts of the Apostles is proper to Augustine, to emphasize that it is the deep dynamism of your communities, the first great source from which all your service to the Church and to humanity springs. Soul una et cor unum is born from this perennial Source: in Deum. Your hearts always reaching out to God. Always! Each member of the community should be directed, as the first holy purpose of every day, to the search for God, or to let himself be searched by God. This direction should be declared, confessed and witnessed among you without false modesty. The search for God cannot be obscured by other purposes, although generous and apostolic. Because that is your first apostolate. We are here - you should be able to say every day among yourselves - because we walk towards God. And because God is Love, we walk towards Him in love.
As the dear father Agostino Trapé wrote: According to the Rule, charity is not only the end and the means of religious life, but it is also its centre: from charity it must proceed and charity must be oriented, with a perennial movement of circular causality, every thought, every affection, every attitude, every action (St. Augustine, The Rule, Milan 1971 Anchor, p. 137).
Writing to St. Jerome, Saint Augustine expressed his own experience of community in this way: I confess that I find it very natural to abandon myself entirely to the affection of such people, especially when I am oppressed by the scandals of the world: in their heart I find rest, free of concern, being convinced that there is God in it (Letters 73,10). And before the scandals of the Church or even the scandals of your family, peace is on this path. Go back to this ... and the scandals fall, by themselves, because they show that there is no other way, this is the path.
It is good to return often to that meditation which Augustine gave to his faithful, on the First Letter of John, where the Church is called by him mater charitas, a mother who cries for the division of children and calls and calls for unity of charity : If you want to know if you have received the Spirit, ask your heart, so as not to run the risk of having the sacrament but not the effect of it. Ask your heart and if there is charity towards your brother, be calm. There can be no love without the Spirit of God, because Paul cries out: "The love of God has been spread in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Rom 5: 5) (Letters, VI,10).
Your Constitutions recall this fraternal charity a prophetic sign, and their warning is wise when they say: We will not be able to accomplish all this unless we take our cross of every day for love of Christ, with humility and meekness. The cross is the measure of love, always. It is true that one can love without the cross, when there is no cross, but when there is the cross, the way in which I take the cross is the measure of love. That is the truth.
Let us return to Augustinian meditation in order to hear from him, your father and guide, which is ultimately the way of charitatis: The Lord says: 'I give you a new commandment, love one another' (Jn 13:34) ... But what is the perfection of love? It is also loving our enemies and loving them so that they become brothers ... Thus he loved the one who, hanging on the cross, said: 'Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing' (Lk 23:34) ... When he was nailed to the cross, he walked precisely on this path, which is the path of charity (Letters, I, 9).
Dear brothers, this is also the challenge and responsibility for you today: to live in your communities in such a way as to share the experience of God together and to be able to show it as being alive in the world: the experience of the Lord, as He is, as He seeks us every day! May Mary, mother of Jesus and a luminous figure of the Church, accompany you and protect you always. I cordially bless you, and I ask you, please, to pray for me. Thank you.
Testo originale nella lingua italiana
Texto en español
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