At 12 o'clock this morning in the Sala Clementina of the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father Benedict XVI received in audience the participants in the General Assembly of the Priestly Fraternity of the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo, to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the community.
Here is the speech that the Pope addressed the audience:
Dear Brothers and Friends,
It is with true joy that I live this meeting with you, priests and seminarians of the Fraternity of St. Charles, gathered here on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his birth. I greet and thank the founder and superior general, Bishop Massimo Camisasca, its board, and all of you, family and friends, you do crown to the community. In particular, I greet the Archbishop of the Mother of God in Moscow Archbishop Paolo Pezzi, and Don Julian Carron, president of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, which symbolically express the fruits and the root of the work of the Society of St. Charles. This moment brings to my memory a long friendship with Monsignor Luigi Giussani, and testifies to the fruitfulness of his charisma.
On this occasion, I would answer two questions suggests to me that our meeting: what is the place of the ordained priesthood in the Church? What is the place of the priestly life together?
Your birth of the movement Communion and Liberation, and your reference ecclesial life experience shows that, put before us a truth that has been reaffirmed with particular clarity in the nineteenth century onwards, and which has found expression in a significant theology of Vatican II. I am referring to the fact that the Christian priesthood is not an end in itself. It was built by Jesus according to the birth and life of the Church. Every priest, therefore, can say to the faithful, to paraphrase St. Augustine: Vobiscum Christianus, sacerdos pro vobis . The glory and joy of the priesthood is to serve Christ and his Mystical Body. It is a beautiful and unique vocation within the Church, which makes Christ present, because it is part of the unique and eternal Priesthood of Christ. The presence of priestly vocations is a sure sign of truth and vitality of a Christian community. For God always calls, even to the priesthood, there is no real growth in the Church without a genuine and fruitful priestly presence that sustains the food. I am so grateful to all those who devote their energies to the training of priests and the reform of priestly life. As the whole Church, in fact, need to continuously renew the priesthood, finding the life of Jesus forms the most essential of his being.
The different possible ways of this renewal can not overlook some essential elements. First, a deep education to meditation and prayer, lived as a dialogue with the risen Lord present in his Church. Second, a study of theology that you can meet Christian truths in the form of a summary related to the life of the individual and the community: only a scholarly look can thus exploit the power that faith has to illuminate the life and the world, continuously leading to Christ, the Creator and Savior.
The Fraternity of St. Charles has pointed out, during the course of his brief but intense history, the value of the common life. I too have spoken many times in my speeches before and after my call to the throne of Peter. "It is important that priests do not live isolated from somewhere, but stay together in small communities, they support each other and do so in their experience of being together in service to Christ and surrender to the kingdom of Heaven and take even more conscience "( Light of the world , Vatican City, 2010, 208). They are under our eyes to the urgency of this moment. I think for example the shortage of priests. Community life is not primarily a strategy to meet these needs. Nor is it in itself, only a form of aid in the face of loneliness and weakness of man. All this can be, certainly, but only if the fraternal life is conceived and experienced as a way to immerse yourself in the reality of communion. Community life is in fact an expression of Christ's gift which is the Church, and is foreshadowed in the apostolic community, which gave rise to the priests. No priest administers fact that something is right, but participates with others on a sacramental gift that comes directly from Jesus
Because it expresses the common life that Christ gives aid to our lives, calling us, through the presence of the brothers, to a configuration ever deeper to his person. Living with others is to accept the necessity of its continual conversion and in particular to discover the beauty of this journey, joy, humility, penance, but also the conversation of mutual forgiveness, mutual support. Ecce quam bonum et quam fratres iucundum habitare in unum ( Ps. 133.1).
No one can take the healing powers of common life without prayer, without looking at the experience and teaching of the saints, especially of the Fathers of the Church without a sacramental life lived faithfully.If you do not enter the eternal dialogue maintains that the Son with the Father in the Holy Spirit no genuine common life is possible. It should be with Jesus to be with others. This is the heart of the mission. In the company of Christ and the brothers each priest can find the energy to take care of men to take responsibility for the spiritual and material needs met, to teach new words are always dictated by love, the eternal truths of the faith in thirsty even our contemporaries.
Dear brothers and friends, continue to go around the world to bring to all the fellowship that comes from the heart of Christ! The experience of the Apostles with Jesus is always the beacon that lights up your priestly life! I encourage you to continue on the path outlined in these years, I gladly impart my blessing to all the priests and seminarians of the Fraternity of St. Charles, the Missionaries of St. Charles, their family and friends.
[00214-01.01] [Original text: Italian]
[B0089-XX.01] VATICAN.VA REPORT
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