Pope Francis' Advice "...it is necessary to set aside intense time for prayer every day, to be heart to heart with the Lord: a prolonged moment of adoration, meditation on the Word, the holy Rosary" FULL TEXT to Religious
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APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS FRANCIS
in the DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO and SOUTH SUDAN
(Ecumenical Peace Pilgrimage in South Sudan)
[January 31 - February 5, 2023]
PRAYER MEETING WITH PRIESTS, DEACONS, CONSECRATED,
CONSECRATED WOMEN AND SEMINARIANS
SPEECH OF THE HOLY FATHER
Cathedral “Notre Dame of the Congo” (Kinshasa)
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Dear brother priests, deacons and seminarians,
dear consecrated men and women, good evening and happy feast!
I am happy to be with you today, the Presentation of the Lord, a day in which we pray in a special way for the consecrated life. We all, like Simeon, await the light of the Lord to illuminate the darkness of our lives and, even more, we all desire to live the same experience that he had in the Temple of Jerusalem: holding Jesus in our arms. Holding him in our arms, so to have it before the eyes and on the heart. Thus, by placing Jesus at the center, the gaze on life changes and, even within the travails and hardships, we feel enveloped in his light, consoled by his Spirit, encouraged by his Word, supported by his love for him.
I say this thinking of the words of welcome pronounced by Cardinal Ambongo, whom I thank; he spoke of "enormous challenges" to face in order to live the priestly and religious commitment in this land marked by "difficult and often dangerous conditions", a land of so much suffering. Yet, as he recalled, there is also so much joy in the service of the Gospel and there are numerous vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life. Here is the abundance of God's grace, which works precisely in weakness (cf. 2 Cor 12:9) and which enables you, together with the lay faithful, to generate hope in the often painful situations of your people.
The certainty that accompanies us even in difficulties is given by God's fidelity. He, through the prophet Isaiah, says: "I will open a road even in the desert, I will put rivers in the steppe" (43:19). I thought I'd offer you some reflections starting from these words of Isaiah: God opens roads in our deserts and we, ordained ministers and consecrated persons, are called to be a sign of this promise and to make it come true in the history of God's holy people. But, concretely, to what are we called? To serve the people as witnesses of God's love. Isaiah helps us understand how.
Through the mouth of the prophet, the Lord reaches his people in a dramatic moment, while the Israelites have been deported to Babylon and reduced to slavery. Moved with compassion, God wants to console them. In fact, this part of the book of Isaiah is known as the "Book of Consolation", because the Lord addresses his people words of hope and promises of salvation. And first of all he remembers the bond of love that binds him to his people: «Do not be afraid, because I have redeemed you, I have called you by name: you belong to me. If you have to cross the waters, I will be with you, the rivers will not overwhelm you; if you have to go through the fire, you will not get burned, the flame will not be able to burn you" (43:1-2). Thus the Lord reveals himself as the God of compassion and ensures that he never leaves us alone, that he is always by our side, refuge and strength in times of difficulty. God is compassionate. The three names of God, the three traits of God are mercy, compassion and tenderness. Because all these make the closeness of God: a close, compassionate and tender God.
Dear priests and deacons, consecrated men and women, seminarians: through you again today the Lord wants to anoint his people with the oil of consolation and hope. And you are called to echo this promise of God, to remember that He has shaped us and we belong to Him, to encourage the community's journey and accompany it in faith towards the One who is already walking beside us. God does not allow water to engulf us, nor fire to burn us. Let us feel that we are bearers of this announcement in the midst of the suffering of the people. This is what it means to be servants of the people: priests, nuns, missionaries who have experienced the joy of the liberating encounter with Jesus and offer it to others. Let us remember this: the priesthood and consecrated life become dry if we live them to "serve" the people instead of "serving" them. It is not a question of a job to earn or have a social position, nor to settle one's family of origin, but it is the mission of being signs of the presence of Christ, of his unconditional love, of the forgiveness with which he wants to reconcile us, of compassion with who wants to take care of the poor. We have been called to offer our lives for our brothers and sisters, bringing them Jesus, the only one who heals the wounds of the heart.
To live our vocation in this way, we always have challenges to face, temptations to overcome. I would like to dwell briefly on these three: spiritual mediocrity, worldly comfort, superficiality.
First of all, to overcome spiritual mediocrity. As? The Presentation of the Lord, which in the Christian East is called the "feast of encounter", reminds us of the priority of our life: the encounter with the Lord, especially in personal prayer, because the relationship with Him is the foundation of our work . Let us not forget that the secret of everything is prayer, because the ministry and the apostolate are not first of all our work and do not depend only on human means. And you will tell me: yes, it is true, but commitments, pastoral urgencies, apostolic efforts, tiredness and so on risk not leaving enough time and energy for prayer. For this I would like to share some advice: first of all, let us keep faith with certain liturgical rhythms of prayer that mark the day, from the Mass to the breviary. The daily Eucharistic celebration is the beating heart of priestly and religious life. The Liturgy of the Hours allows us to pray with the Church and regularly: let us never neglect it! And let's not forget Confession either: we always need to be forgiven in order to be able to give mercy. Another piece of advice: as we know, we cannot limit ourselves to the ritual recitation of prayers, but it is necessary to set aside intense time for prayer every day, to be heart to heart with the Lord: a prolonged moment of adoration, meditation on the Word, the holy Rosary ; an intimate encounter with the One we love above all things. Furthermore, when we are fully active, we can also have recourse to prayer from the heart, to short "short prayers" - short prayers are a treasure - words of praise, thanksgiving and invocation to be repeated to the Lord wherever we are. Prayer decentralizes us, opens us to God, puts us back on our feet because it places us in his hands. It creates within us the space to experience God's closeness, so that his Word becomes familiar to us and, through us, to all we meet. Without prayer you don't go far. Finally, to overcome spiritual mediocrity, let us never tire of invoking Our Lady - she is our Mother - and of learning from her to contemplate and follow Jesus.
The second challenge is to overcome the temptation of worldly comfort, of a comfortable life in which to arrange all things more or less and move forward by inertia, seeking our comfort and dragging ourselves along without enthusiasm. But in this way the heart of the mission is lost, which is to go out of the territories of the self to go towards the brothers and sisters exercising, in the name of God, the art of closeness. There is a great risk associated with worldliness, especially in a context of poverty and suffering: that of taking advantage of the role we have to satisfy our needs and comforts. It's sad, very sad when you turn in on yourself and become a cold bureaucrat of the spirit. Then, instead of serving the Gospel, we are concerned with managing finances and carrying out some business that is advantageous for us. Brothers and sisters, it is scandalous when this happens in the life of a priest or a religious, who should instead be models of sobriety and inner freedom. How beautiful it is instead to keep clear in intentions and free from compromises with money, joyfully embracing evangelical poverty and working alongside the poor! And how beautiful it is to be luminous in living celibacy as a sign of complete availability to the Kingdom of God! Let it not happen instead that we find, well planted, those vices that we would like to eradicate in others and in society. Please, let us be vigilant of worldly comfort.
Finally, the third challenge is to overcome the temptation of superficiality. If the People of God expects to be reached and consoled by the Word of the Lord, there is a need for priests and religious who are prepared, trained, passionate about the Gospel. A gift has been placed in our hands and, for our part, it would be presumptuous to think we can live the mission to which God has called us without working on ourselves every day and without forming ourselves adequately, in the spiritual life as in theological preparation . The people do not need officials of the sacred or graduates detached from the people. We are required to enter the heart of the Christian mystery, to deepen its doctrine, to study and meditate on the Word of God; and at the same time to remain open to the anxieties of our time, to the increasingly complex questions of our age, in order to be able to understand people's lives and needs, to understand how to take them by the hand and accompany them. Therefore, the formation of the clergy is not optional. I say this to seminarians, but it applies to everyone: formation is a journey to be pursued always and throughout life. It is called ongoing formation: formation always, for life.
These challenges that I have spoken to you about must be faced if we want to serve the people as witnesses of God's love, because service is effective only if it passes through witness. Do not forget this word: testimony. In fact, after pronouncing words of consolation, the Lord says through Isaiah: «Who can proclaim this among them to make us hear the things of the past? You are my witnesses" (43:9.10). Witnesses. To be good priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, words and intentions are not enough: what speaks, first of all, is life itself, one's own life. Dear brothers and sisters, looking at you I give thanks to God, because you are signs of the presence of Jesus who passes along the streets of this country and touches people's lives, the wounds of their flesh. But there is still a need for young people who say "yes" to the Lord, for other priests and religious who let his beauty shine through their lives.
In your testimonies you have reminded me how difficult it is to live the mission in a land rich in so many natural beauties and resources, but wounded by exploitation, corruption, violence and injustice. But you also spoke of the parable of the good Samaritan: it is Jesus who passes along our roads and, especially through his Church, he stops and takes care of the wounds of the oppressed. Dear friends, the ministry to which you are called is precisely this: to offer closeness and consolation, like a light always on in the midst of so much darkness. We learn from the Lord, who is always near. And in order to be brothers and sisters of all, first of all be one among yourselves: witnesses of fraternity, never in war; witnesses of peace, learning to overcome even the particular aspects of cultures and ethnic origins, because, as Benedict XVI said addressing African priests, "your witness of peaceful life, beyond tribal and racial frontiers, can touch the hearts (Apostolic Exhortation Africae munus, 108).
A proverb says: «The wind does not break what can bend». The history of many peoples of this Continent has unfortunately been bent and plagued by wounds and violence, and therefore, if there is a desire that rises from the heart, it is that of not having to do it again, of no longer having to submit to the arrogance of the most strong, of no longer having to lower his head under the yoke of injustice. But we can welcome the words of the proverb mainly in a positive sense: there is a bowing that is not synonymous with weakness, with being cowardly, but with fortitude; then it means being flexible, overcoming rigidity; it means cultivating a docile humanity, which does not close itself in hatred and rancor; it means being willing to let yourself be changed, without clinging to your own ideas and positions. If we humbly bow before God, He makes us become like Him, workers of mercy. When we remain docile in God's hands, He molds us and makes us reconciled people, who know how to open up and dialogue, welcome and forgive, pour rivers of peace into the arid steppes of violence. And thus, when the winds of conflict and division blow impetuously, these people cannot be broken, because they are filled with God's love. Be like this too: docile to the God of mercy, never broken by the winds of division.
Sisters and brothers, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for who you are and what you do, I thank you for your witness to the Church and to the world. Don't be discouraged, we need you! You are precious, important: I tell you this in the name of the whole Church. I wish you always to be channels of the Lord's consolation and joyful witnesses of the Gospel, prophecy of peace in the spirals of violence, disciples of Love ready to heal the wounds of the poor and the suffering. Thank you very much, sisters and brothers, thank you again for your service and for your pastoral zeal. I bless you and carry you in my heart. And you, please, don't forget to pray for me! Thank you.
in the DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO and SOUTH SUDAN
(Ecumenical Peace Pilgrimage in South Sudan)
[January 31 - February 5, 2023]
PRAYER MEETING WITH PRIESTS, DEACONS, CONSECRATED,
CONSECRATED WOMEN AND SEMINARIANS
SPEECH OF THE HOLY FATHER
Cathedral “Notre Dame of the Congo” (Kinshasa)
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Dear brother priests, deacons and seminarians,
dear consecrated men and women, good evening and happy feast!
I am happy to be with you today, the Presentation of the Lord, a day in which we pray in a special way for the consecrated life. We all, like Simeon, await the light of the Lord to illuminate the darkness of our lives and, even more, we all desire to live the same experience that he had in the Temple of Jerusalem: holding Jesus in our arms. Holding him in our arms, so to have it before the eyes and on the heart. Thus, by placing Jesus at the center, the gaze on life changes and, even within the travails and hardships, we feel enveloped in his light, consoled by his Spirit, encouraged by his Word, supported by his love for him.
I say this thinking of the words of welcome pronounced by Cardinal Ambongo, whom I thank; he spoke of "enormous challenges" to face in order to live the priestly and religious commitment in this land marked by "difficult and often dangerous conditions", a land of so much suffering. Yet, as he recalled, there is also so much joy in the service of the Gospel and there are numerous vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life. Here is the abundance of God's grace, which works precisely in weakness (cf. 2 Cor 12:9) and which enables you, together with the lay faithful, to generate hope in the often painful situations of your people.
The certainty that accompanies us even in difficulties is given by God's fidelity. He, through the prophet Isaiah, says: "I will open a road even in the desert, I will put rivers in the steppe" (43:19). I thought I'd offer you some reflections starting from these words of Isaiah: God opens roads in our deserts and we, ordained ministers and consecrated persons, are called to be a sign of this promise and to make it come true in the history of God's holy people. But, concretely, to what are we called? To serve the people as witnesses of God's love. Isaiah helps us understand how.
Through the mouth of the prophet, the Lord reaches his people in a dramatic moment, while the Israelites have been deported to Babylon and reduced to slavery. Moved with compassion, God wants to console them. In fact, this part of the book of Isaiah is known as the "Book of Consolation", because the Lord addresses his people words of hope and promises of salvation. And first of all he remembers the bond of love that binds him to his people: «Do not be afraid, because I have redeemed you, I have called you by name: you belong to me. If you have to cross the waters, I will be with you, the rivers will not overwhelm you; if you have to go through the fire, you will not get burned, the flame will not be able to burn you" (43:1-2). Thus the Lord reveals himself as the God of compassion and ensures that he never leaves us alone, that he is always by our side, refuge and strength in times of difficulty. God is compassionate. The three names of God, the three traits of God are mercy, compassion and tenderness. Because all these make the closeness of God: a close, compassionate and tender God.
Dear priests and deacons, consecrated men and women, seminarians: through you again today the Lord wants to anoint his people with the oil of consolation and hope. And you are called to echo this promise of God, to remember that He has shaped us and we belong to Him, to encourage the community's journey and accompany it in faith towards the One who is already walking beside us. God does not allow water to engulf us, nor fire to burn us. Let us feel that we are bearers of this announcement in the midst of the suffering of the people. This is what it means to be servants of the people: priests, nuns, missionaries who have experienced the joy of the liberating encounter with Jesus and offer it to others. Let us remember this: the priesthood and consecrated life become dry if we live them to "serve" the people instead of "serving" them. It is not a question of a job to earn or have a social position, nor to settle one's family of origin, but it is the mission of being signs of the presence of Christ, of his unconditional love, of the forgiveness with which he wants to reconcile us, of compassion with who wants to take care of the poor. We have been called to offer our lives for our brothers and sisters, bringing them Jesus, the only one who heals the wounds of the heart.
To live our vocation in this way, we always have challenges to face, temptations to overcome. I would like to dwell briefly on these three: spiritual mediocrity, worldly comfort, superficiality.
First of all, to overcome spiritual mediocrity. As? The Presentation of the Lord, which in the Christian East is called the "feast of encounter", reminds us of the priority of our life: the encounter with the Lord, especially in personal prayer, because the relationship with Him is the foundation of our work . Let us not forget that the secret of everything is prayer, because the ministry and the apostolate are not first of all our work and do not depend only on human means. And you will tell me: yes, it is true, but commitments, pastoral urgencies, apostolic efforts, tiredness and so on risk not leaving enough time and energy for prayer. For this I would like to share some advice: first of all, let us keep faith with certain liturgical rhythms of prayer that mark the day, from the Mass to the breviary. The daily Eucharistic celebration is the beating heart of priestly and religious life. The Liturgy of the Hours allows us to pray with the Church and regularly: let us never neglect it! And let's not forget Confession either: we always need to be forgiven in order to be able to give mercy. Another piece of advice: as we know, we cannot limit ourselves to the ritual recitation of prayers, but it is necessary to set aside intense time for prayer every day, to be heart to heart with the Lord: a prolonged moment of adoration, meditation on the Word, the holy Rosary ; an intimate encounter with the One we love above all things. Furthermore, when we are fully active, we can also have recourse to prayer from the heart, to short "short prayers" - short prayers are a treasure - words of praise, thanksgiving and invocation to be repeated to the Lord wherever we are. Prayer decentralizes us, opens us to God, puts us back on our feet because it places us in his hands. It creates within us the space to experience God's closeness, so that his Word becomes familiar to us and, through us, to all we meet. Without prayer you don't go far. Finally, to overcome spiritual mediocrity, let us never tire of invoking Our Lady - she is our Mother - and of learning from her to contemplate and follow Jesus.
The second challenge is to overcome the temptation of worldly comfort, of a comfortable life in which to arrange all things more or less and move forward by inertia, seeking our comfort and dragging ourselves along without enthusiasm. But in this way the heart of the mission is lost, which is to go out of the territories of the self to go towards the brothers and sisters exercising, in the name of God, the art of closeness. There is a great risk associated with worldliness, especially in a context of poverty and suffering: that of taking advantage of the role we have to satisfy our needs and comforts. It's sad, very sad when you turn in on yourself and become a cold bureaucrat of the spirit. Then, instead of serving the Gospel, we are concerned with managing finances and carrying out some business that is advantageous for us. Brothers and sisters, it is scandalous when this happens in the life of a priest or a religious, who should instead be models of sobriety and inner freedom. How beautiful it is instead to keep clear in intentions and free from compromises with money, joyfully embracing evangelical poverty and working alongside the poor! And how beautiful it is to be luminous in living celibacy as a sign of complete availability to the Kingdom of God! Let it not happen instead that we find, well planted, those vices that we would like to eradicate in others and in society. Please, let us be vigilant of worldly comfort.
Finally, the third challenge is to overcome the temptation of superficiality. If the People of God expects to be reached and consoled by the Word of the Lord, there is a need for priests and religious who are prepared, trained, passionate about the Gospel. A gift has been placed in our hands and, for our part, it would be presumptuous to think we can live the mission to which God has called us without working on ourselves every day and without forming ourselves adequately, in the spiritual life as in theological preparation . The people do not need officials of the sacred or graduates detached from the people. We are required to enter the heart of the Christian mystery, to deepen its doctrine, to study and meditate on the Word of God; and at the same time to remain open to the anxieties of our time, to the increasingly complex questions of our age, in order to be able to understand people's lives and needs, to understand how to take them by the hand and accompany them. Therefore, the formation of the clergy is not optional. I say this to seminarians, but it applies to everyone: formation is a journey to be pursued always and throughout life. It is called ongoing formation: formation always, for life.
These challenges that I have spoken to you about must be faced if we want to serve the people as witnesses of God's love, because service is effective only if it passes through witness. Do not forget this word: testimony. In fact, after pronouncing words of consolation, the Lord says through Isaiah: «Who can proclaim this among them to make us hear the things of the past? You are my witnesses" (43:9.10). Witnesses. To be good priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, words and intentions are not enough: what speaks, first of all, is life itself, one's own life. Dear brothers and sisters, looking at you I give thanks to God, because you are signs of the presence of Jesus who passes along the streets of this country and touches people's lives, the wounds of their flesh. But there is still a need for young people who say "yes" to the Lord, for other priests and religious who let his beauty shine through their lives.
In your testimonies you have reminded me how difficult it is to live the mission in a land rich in so many natural beauties and resources, but wounded by exploitation, corruption, violence and injustice. But you also spoke of the parable of the good Samaritan: it is Jesus who passes along our roads and, especially through his Church, he stops and takes care of the wounds of the oppressed. Dear friends, the ministry to which you are called is precisely this: to offer closeness and consolation, like a light always on in the midst of so much darkness. We learn from the Lord, who is always near. And in order to be brothers and sisters of all, first of all be one among yourselves: witnesses of fraternity, never in war; witnesses of peace, learning to overcome even the particular aspects of cultures and ethnic origins, because, as Benedict XVI said addressing African priests, "your witness of peaceful life, beyond tribal and racial frontiers, can touch the hearts (Apostolic Exhortation Africae munus, 108).
A proverb says: «The wind does not break what can bend». The history of many peoples of this Continent has unfortunately been bent and plagued by wounds and violence, and therefore, if there is a desire that rises from the heart, it is that of not having to do it again, of no longer having to submit to the arrogance of the most strong, of no longer having to lower his head under the yoke of injustice. But we can welcome the words of the proverb mainly in a positive sense: there is a bowing that is not synonymous with weakness, with being cowardly, but with fortitude; then it means being flexible, overcoming rigidity; it means cultivating a docile humanity, which does not close itself in hatred and rancor; it means being willing to let yourself be changed, without clinging to your own ideas and positions. If we humbly bow before God, He makes us become like Him, workers of mercy. When we remain docile in God's hands, He molds us and makes us reconciled people, who know how to open up and dialogue, welcome and forgive, pour rivers of peace into the arid steppes of violence. And thus, when the winds of conflict and division blow impetuously, these people cannot be broken, because they are filled with God's love. Be like this too: docile to the God of mercy, never broken by the winds of division.
Sisters and brothers, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for who you are and what you do, I thank you for your witness to the Church and to the world. Don't be discouraged, we need you! You are precious, important: I tell you this in the name of the whole Church. I wish you always to be channels of the Lord's consolation and joyful witnesses of the Gospel, prophecy of peace in the spirals of violence, disciples of Love ready to heal the wounds of the poor and the suffering. Thank you very much, sisters and brothers, thank you again for your service and for your pastoral zeal. I bless you and carry you in my heart. And you, please, don't forget to pray for me! Thank you.
Source: https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2023/02/02/0098/00166.html
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