Pope Francis "I encourage you to share with the people of our time...the Mercy of God that has loved us.." FULL TEXT to Emmanuel Community
TO THE COMMUNITY OF EMMANUEL
Clementine Hall
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Dear friends,
I am very pleased to welcome you to your annual meeting in Rome this year. This pilgrimage is a sign of the full participation of the Emmanuel Community in the communion of the entire Catholic Church. It is also the occasion for me to thank you for your fidelity and your attachment to the Successor of Peter, to say to you the appreciation that I carry on your missionary commitment now present on all the continents, and to encourage you to the perseverance for the future.
This future is now marked by the recent recognition of the Clerical Association of the Emmanuel Community on August 15, a structure made timely because of the many priestly vocations that Emmanuel's charism inspired and for greater fertility. evangelism. Far from isolating the priests from other members of the community, secular or consecrated, I express the wish that this recognition will, on the contrary, vitalize this beautiful communion of the states of life which you have been experiencing for more than 40 years, in the complementarity of various vocations. I also invite your Communities to keep an ever closer link with this rich reality of the parish of the place where they live, and that they willingly integrate into the organic pastoral of the particular Church (see Evangelii Gaudium, 29).
The charism of the Emmanuel Community is inscribed in his name, Emmanuel, God with us. It is essentially in the contemplation of the mystery of the incarnation, especially in Eucharistic adoration, that you draw missionary dynamism to announce the good news to all those to whom Jesus offers his friendship. I encourage you to share with the people of our time, wherever the Spirit sends you, the Mercy of God that has loved us to the point of remaining among us. This Mercy of the Lord, always present to his people, asks to be proposed with a new enthusiasm and through a renewed pastoral so that it penetrates the hearts of people and encourages them to find the way back to the Father (see Bulle Misericordiae Vultus, 15). That where your Community is present, the Mercy of the Father is manifest, especially to the poorest - heart or body - healing their wounds by the consolation of the Gospel, by solidarity and attention (ibid.) .
Dear friends, the Emmanuel Community has shown, from its origins, a real dynamism to announce the Good News in a lively and joyful way. I urge you to remain rooted in Christ by a solid inner life and confident in the Holy Spirit who comes to the aid of our weakness and who heals us from all that weakens our missionary commitment; to keep in heart this ardent desire to transmit the joy of the Gospel to those who ignore it or who have left it; to be fully involved in this "Church out" that I call my wishes. "The Church counts on you, on your fidelity to the Word, on your availability for service and on the witness of lives transformed by the Holy Spirit" (Pentecost Vigil, June 3, 2017).
With you I give thanks for all the way that you have traveled under the influence of the Holy Spirit who wants us to be always on the way, and I invite you to always listen to him because there is no greater freedom to be guided by the Spirit and to allow him to enlighten us and to lead us where he wants.
I entrust you all to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, asking her to guide your steps and support your efforts. And I give you the Blessing. And, please, do not forget to pray for me. Thank you.
Source: Vatican.va (Unofficial Translation)
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