Pope Francis says "In the silent and hidden service that you are called to carry out every day, may you be the image of Jesus Christ, the face of the Father's mercy..." to Religious
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SPEECH OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE GENERAL CHAPTER OF THE SERVANTS OF THE PARACLYTE
TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE GENERAL CHAPTER OF THE SERVANTS OF THE PARACLYTE
Founded in 1947 to assist priests with personal difficulties The Congregation was founded in 1947 in New Mexico, U.S.A., by Father Gerald M.C. Fitzgerald, with the mission of ministering to fellow priests and religious men with personal difficulties, including abuse alcohol and sexual disorders, by offering spiritual, holistic programs for vocational renewal through spiritual direction, individual and group therapy, supervised living, ongoing education and formation, prayer and contemplation. (Vatican News)
Saturday, June 24, 2023
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Dear brothers, good morning and welcome!
I meet you at this significant moment for your Congregation which is the General Chapter, an intense time of dialogue between yourselves and with the Holy Spirit, from which to emerge renewed, first of all in the heart, in the vision and in the resolutions, and then in the initiatives and structures . Time for collegial discernment of the signs that come to you from your journey and from your history.
Animated therefore by the grace proper to the Chapter, you propose to find new ways of mercy and proximity to realize your charism with dynamic fidelity. It places you alongside priests in difficulty, to "render - as your Constitutions say - every possible and prudent service to those who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders" (Const. 4, 2). The motto of your Institute: Pro Christo Priest (cf. ibid., 4, 4), sums up well your particular vocation: you are placed at the service of Christ in his priests.
At the present time, this also means sharing the particular path of purification that the Church is experiencing due to the tragedies of abuse. "Sin disfigures us, and we painfully experience the humiliating experience when we ourselves or one of our brother priests or bishops falls into the bottomless abyss of vice, corruption or, worse still, crime that destroys the lives of others" (Meditation to the Clergy of Rome, March 7, 2019). In a situation like this, being "servants of the Paraclete" asks you to dedicate your life to accompanying some priest and consecrated brothers, offering each one a path of asceticism, conversion and spiritual and vocational renewal.
With the spirit and style of the Good Samaritan, you stand beside these confreres, sharing life and daily prayer with them. Above all, you insert them in a community, a praying community, which helps to rediscover the harmony of life that a vocational crisis always compromises.
As you face the many facets of this problem, I invite you to deepen the spirituality of reparation (see Address to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, 5 May 2023), starting from the need for purification, at the service of the holiness of the Pastors of the People of God.
Your charism particularly values ascetic commitment and prayer, with a contemplative nature, which you rightly feel the duty to fully assume again. Together with the priests you accompany, you are called to rediscover the primacy of the spiritual life, aware that priestly maturity is fulfilled when the Holy Spirit becomes the protagonist of the life of ordained ministers (see Homily in the Crismal Mass, 6 April 2023). In fact, the spiritual life of a priest grows «not when shapes are saved and a patch is sewn, but when the initiative is left to the Spirit» (ivi). Leave the initiative to the Spirit: it is He who carries forward conversion and harmony in the life of a priest. Duplicity should not be tolerated but brought to light, in the light of the Spirit. He alone heals us from infidelities (see Hos 14:5). He alone, no other methods. What heals us from infidelities is the Holy Spirit.
In the silent and hidden service that you are called to carry out every day, may you be the image of Jesus Christ, the face of the Father's mercy (Bull Misericordiae vultus, 11 April 2015, 1), who reveals to us the mystery of divine love in its fullness. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, "God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). May the Spirit help you to look at each one with the eyes of Jesus, with his love for him, with his tenderness.
Dear brothers, I thank you for coming and I wish you a good journey as witnesses of the Gospel of mercy. May the Virgin Mary accompany you and protect you: look to her to "believe in the revolutionary power of tenderness and affection" (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 288). I bless you from the bottom of my heart. And please don't forget to pray for me. Thank you.
Saturday, June 24, 2023
________________________________________
Dear brothers, good morning and welcome!
I meet you at this significant moment for your Congregation which is the General Chapter, an intense time of dialogue between yourselves and with the Holy Spirit, from which to emerge renewed, first of all in the heart, in the vision and in the resolutions, and then in the initiatives and structures . Time for collegial discernment of the signs that come to you from your journey and from your history.
Animated therefore by the grace proper to the Chapter, you propose to find new ways of mercy and proximity to realize your charism with dynamic fidelity. It places you alongside priests in difficulty, to "render - as your Constitutions say - every possible and prudent service to those who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders" (Const. 4, 2). The motto of your Institute: Pro Christo Priest (cf. ibid., 4, 4), sums up well your particular vocation: you are placed at the service of Christ in his priests.
At the present time, this also means sharing the particular path of purification that the Church is experiencing due to the tragedies of abuse. "Sin disfigures us, and we painfully experience the humiliating experience when we ourselves or one of our brother priests or bishops falls into the bottomless abyss of vice, corruption or, worse still, crime that destroys the lives of others" (Meditation to the Clergy of Rome, March 7, 2019). In a situation like this, being "servants of the Paraclete" asks you to dedicate your life to accompanying some priest and consecrated brothers, offering each one a path of asceticism, conversion and spiritual and vocational renewal.
With the spirit and style of the Good Samaritan, you stand beside these confreres, sharing life and daily prayer with them. Above all, you insert them in a community, a praying community, which helps to rediscover the harmony of life that a vocational crisis always compromises.
As you face the many facets of this problem, I invite you to deepen the spirituality of reparation (see Address to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, 5 May 2023), starting from the need for purification, at the service of the holiness of the Pastors of the People of God.
Your charism particularly values ascetic commitment and prayer, with a contemplative nature, which you rightly feel the duty to fully assume again. Together with the priests you accompany, you are called to rediscover the primacy of the spiritual life, aware that priestly maturity is fulfilled when the Holy Spirit becomes the protagonist of the life of ordained ministers (see Homily in the Crismal Mass, 6 April 2023). In fact, the spiritual life of a priest grows «not when shapes are saved and a patch is sewn, but when the initiative is left to the Spirit» (ivi). Leave the initiative to the Spirit: it is He who carries forward conversion and harmony in the life of a priest. Duplicity should not be tolerated but brought to light, in the light of the Spirit. He alone heals us from infidelities (see Hos 14:5). He alone, no other methods. What heals us from infidelities is the Holy Spirit.
In the silent and hidden service that you are called to carry out every day, may you be the image of Jesus Christ, the face of the Father's mercy (Bull Misericordiae vultus, 11 April 2015, 1), who reveals to us the mystery of divine love in its fullness. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, "God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). May the Spirit help you to look at each one with the eyes of Jesus, with his love for him, with his tenderness.
Dear brothers, I thank you for coming and I wish you a good journey as witnesses of the Gospel of mercy. May the Virgin Mary accompany you and protect you: look to her to "believe in the revolutionary power of tenderness and affection" (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 288). I bless you from the bottom of my heart. And please don't forget to pray for me. Thank you.
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