Pope Francis explains "Our communion is born and nourished first of all in the relationship with God the Trinity...."
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ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE GENERAL CHAPTERS OF
POOR SERVANTS AND POOR SERVANTS
OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE (DON CALABRIA)
Clementina room
Monday, May 30, 2022
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
I am happy to meet you on the occasion of your General Chapters. I address my cordial greeting to each and every one. I wish a serene and fruitful service to the Superior General - whom I thank for his words - and to the Superior General, with their respective councils.
You have concluded the chapter works, which had this theme: The prophecy of communion. And it seems to me that you wanted to put it into practice already in the setting of these days. Our communion is born and nourished first of all in the relationship with God the Trinity - we meditated on it with the texts of St. John in this Easter season -; and it is then manifested concretely in fraternity, in the family spirit, which is also typical of your charism, and in the synodal style that you have embraced in full harmony with the journey of the whole Church. Thanks for this, he's brave, thanks! It is nice to see the two religious Congregations together, with the presence of some lay people who actively participated in the Chapters, strengthening their identity and their belonging. This too is a prophecy of communion.
According to your charism, be called to revive faith in God the Father and filial abandonment to his providence in the world. This is beautiful! When we contemplate Jesus in his public life, in his preaching, even in his conversations with the disciples, we see that in his heart there was this desire in the first place: to make the Father known, to make his goodness felt. Thus Jesus lived, fully immersed in the will of the Father, and his entire mission was aimed at making us enter into this filial relationship, which has trust in Providence as its essential feature: that the Father knows us better than ourselves and knows better than us. what we need. Well, you have been "fascinated" by this essential dimension of the mystery of Christ. In the footsteps of San Giovanni Calabria you have chosen to make it yours and bear witness to it, and you want to do it especially in the company of the poorest, the least, the discarded of society, who are your "pearls", as he, your Founder, called them.
Don Calabria, like all saints, was a prophet. He has left you a great legacy and you must keep it. The journey you have made and are taking is nothing other than re-reading today the path that God has indicated to him: a man inserted in the Church of his time, who knew how to respond to needs by going to the peripheries, to manifest the paternal and maternal face of God. Reread it with creative fidelity, seeking new paths so that the "dream of God" may be realized in your religious communities. Pick it up and reread it.
I would say that cultivating trust in divine providence together with the poor makes you artisans of a "culture of providence". This is very important! This dimension should not be lost, this culture of providence which I see as an antidote to the culture of indifference, unfortunately widespread in so-called well-being societies. In fact, the Christian spirituality of providence is not fatalism, it does not mean waiting for the solutions to the problems and the goods we need to rain down from heaven. No. On the contrary, it means trying to resemble, in the Holy Spirit, our heavenly Father in taking care of his creatures, especially of the most fragile, the smallest ones; it means sharing the little we have with others so that no one lacks what is necessary. It is the attitude of care, more than ever necessary to counter that of indifference.
I would like to emphasize again the aspect of sharing because it seems to me to be an essential part of the "prophecy of communion", on which you want to walk together. And I do this by remembering the example that our elders, our grandparents gave us. For them, when a guest suddenly came to their house, or when a poor person knocked for help, it was normal to share a plate of soup or polenta. This was a very concrete way of living Providence, as sharing. We must not idealize that world, nor take refuge in sterile nostalgia, but recover certain values, yes: the mentality of those who break bread by blessing God the Father, confident that that bread will be enough for us and for the neighbor who needs it. This is how Jesus Christ taught us in the miracle of sharing - and not multiplying - the loaves and fishes. Today there is a need for Christians who serve Providence by practicing sharing. And this openly and sincerely, not like Ananias and Sapphira (cf. Acts of the Apostles 5: 1-11), no, openly.
Dear brothers and sisters, St. John Calabria, with his example and intercession, guides you on this path. Please, do not fold in on yourself, in self-referentiality. Try to open up more and more to welcome the novelty and the style that God has inspired and dreams for you. May the synodal and fraternal mentality imbue the service of authority of your Congregations and of the entire Calabrian family.
The geographical and existential peripheries to which the Lord sends you are the field where you can announce the Father's provident love through an overabundant mercy, manifesting the tenderness of the face of God without prejudice and exclusion. Love the poor by making you poor.
I encourage you to value the richness of the different vocations you have within your family: men and women religious and lay people, in the communion of differences and living the one baptismal vocation with radicalism and enthusiasm.
May you feel that you are bearers of a charism which is a gift for the Church, and which grows in the measure in which you live it and share it. This gives you joy: to give your witness with simplicity, with humility but with courage, without mediocrity; and above all I would say with a great sense of humanity. There is so much need for humanity! And also among you, in your communities. I find that a very bad thing in communities is when this dimension of humanity is lacking. And one of the things that destroys this human communion, of humanity, is chatter: please be careful. Never gossip about each other. If you have a problem with a sister or brother, go and tell them to their face. And if you can't tell him to his face, swallow him. But don't go sowing anxieties that hurt and destroy. Chattering is a deadly poison. And many times it is fashionable in the communities. No, you are sure that it does not happen! But I say this because you are careful. It would be nice if from this Chapter there were in each of you the determination to never chat about the other or the other, never. If I have a problem, I tell it to my face. "No, you can't because it's a little neurotic, a little neurotic ...". Then tell the superior or superior, who can remedy it, but not go so far as to sow anxieties that are bad for you. Let that be a good resolution: no chatter.
I thank you for coming and I wish you a good journey: to be a prophecy of communion by bearing witness to the Gospel of Providence, in sharing with the poorest, opposing the culture of waste and indifference. May Our Lady, who is the poor servant of God's providence par excellence, accompany you and protect you. I bless you from my heart. Please, I ask you to pray for me, because I need it too. Thank you.
[Blessing]
See the cover of this booklet: this makes the gossip. This painting is beautiful. Chattering destroys people's identity. For this, no chatter!
TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE GENERAL CHAPTERS OF
POOR SERVANTS AND POOR SERVANTS
OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE (DON CALABRIA)
Clementina room
Monday, May 30, 2022
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
I am happy to meet you on the occasion of your General Chapters. I address my cordial greeting to each and every one. I wish a serene and fruitful service to the Superior General - whom I thank for his words - and to the Superior General, with their respective councils.
You have concluded the chapter works, which had this theme: The prophecy of communion. And it seems to me that you wanted to put it into practice already in the setting of these days. Our communion is born and nourished first of all in the relationship with God the Trinity - we meditated on it with the texts of St. John in this Easter season -; and it is then manifested concretely in fraternity, in the family spirit, which is also typical of your charism, and in the synodal style that you have embraced in full harmony with the journey of the whole Church. Thanks for this, he's brave, thanks! It is nice to see the two religious Congregations together, with the presence of some lay people who actively participated in the Chapters, strengthening their identity and their belonging. This too is a prophecy of communion.
According to your charism, be called to revive faith in God the Father and filial abandonment to his providence in the world. This is beautiful! When we contemplate Jesus in his public life, in his preaching, even in his conversations with the disciples, we see that in his heart there was this desire in the first place: to make the Father known, to make his goodness felt. Thus Jesus lived, fully immersed in the will of the Father, and his entire mission was aimed at making us enter into this filial relationship, which has trust in Providence as its essential feature: that the Father knows us better than ourselves and knows better than us. what we need. Well, you have been "fascinated" by this essential dimension of the mystery of Christ. In the footsteps of San Giovanni Calabria you have chosen to make it yours and bear witness to it, and you want to do it especially in the company of the poorest, the least, the discarded of society, who are your "pearls", as he, your Founder, called them.
Don Calabria, like all saints, was a prophet. He has left you a great legacy and you must keep it. The journey you have made and are taking is nothing other than re-reading today the path that God has indicated to him: a man inserted in the Church of his time, who knew how to respond to needs by going to the peripheries, to manifest the paternal and maternal face of God. Reread it with creative fidelity, seeking new paths so that the "dream of God" may be realized in your religious communities. Pick it up and reread it.
I would say that cultivating trust in divine providence together with the poor makes you artisans of a "culture of providence". This is very important! This dimension should not be lost, this culture of providence which I see as an antidote to the culture of indifference, unfortunately widespread in so-called well-being societies. In fact, the Christian spirituality of providence is not fatalism, it does not mean waiting for the solutions to the problems and the goods we need to rain down from heaven. No. On the contrary, it means trying to resemble, in the Holy Spirit, our heavenly Father in taking care of his creatures, especially of the most fragile, the smallest ones; it means sharing the little we have with others so that no one lacks what is necessary. It is the attitude of care, more than ever necessary to counter that of indifference.
I would like to emphasize again the aspect of sharing because it seems to me to be an essential part of the "prophecy of communion", on which you want to walk together. And I do this by remembering the example that our elders, our grandparents gave us. For them, when a guest suddenly came to their house, or when a poor person knocked for help, it was normal to share a plate of soup or polenta. This was a very concrete way of living Providence, as sharing. We must not idealize that world, nor take refuge in sterile nostalgia, but recover certain values, yes: the mentality of those who break bread by blessing God the Father, confident that that bread will be enough for us and for the neighbor who needs it. This is how Jesus Christ taught us in the miracle of sharing - and not multiplying - the loaves and fishes. Today there is a need for Christians who serve Providence by practicing sharing. And this openly and sincerely, not like Ananias and Sapphira (cf. Acts of the Apostles 5: 1-11), no, openly.
Dear brothers and sisters, St. John Calabria, with his example and intercession, guides you on this path. Please, do not fold in on yourself, in self-referentiality. Try to open up more and more to welcome the novelty and the style that God has inspired and dreams for you. May the synodal and fraternal mentality imbue the service of authority of your Congregations and of the entire Calabrian family.
The geographical and existential peripheries to which the Lord sends you are the field where you can announce the Father's provident love through an overabundant mercy, manifesting the tenderness of the face of God without prejudice and exclusion. Love the poor by making you poor.
I encourage you to value the richness of the different vocations you have within your family: men and women religious and lay people, in the communion of differences and living the one baptismal vocation with radicalism and enthusiasm.
May you feel that you are bearers of a charism which is a gift for the Church, and which grows in the measure in which you live it and share it. This gives you joy: to give your witness with simplicity, with humility but with courage, without mediocrity; and above all I would say with a great sense of humanity. There is so much need for humanity! And also among you, in your communities. I find that a very bad thing in communities is when this dimension of humanity is lacking. And one of the things that destroys this human communion, of humanity, is chatter: please be careful. Never gossip about each other. If you have a problem with a sister or brother, go and tell them to their face. And if you can't tell him to his face, swallow him. But don't go sowing anxieties that hurt and destroy. Chattering is a deadly poison. And many times it is fashionable in the communities. No, you are sure that it does not happen! But I say this because you are careful. It would be nice if from this Chapter there were in each of you the determination to never chat about the other or the other, never. If I have a problem, I tell it to my face. "No, you can't because it's a little neurotic, a little neurotic ...". Then tell the superior or superior, who can remedy it, but not go so far as to sow anxieties that are bad for you. Let that be a good resolution: no chatter.
I thank you for coming and I wish you a good journey: to be a prophecy of communion by bearing witness to the Gospel of Providence, in sharing with the poorest, opposing the culture of waste and indifference. May Our Lady, who is the poor servant of God's providence par excellence, accompany you and protect you. I bless you from my heart. Please, I ask you to pray for me, because I need it too. Thank you.
[Blessing]
See the cover of this booklet: this makes the gossip. This painting is beautiful. Chattering destroys people's identity. For this, no chatter!
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