ABOVE ALL, SEEK AND DO THE WILL OF GOD

VATICAN CITY, MAR 2, 2002 (VIS) - This morning John Paul II received Mother Rita Burley, superior general of the Servants of the Heart of Jesus, and the sisters who are participating in the order's 17th general congregation in Rome.

The Pope affirmed that the upcoming commemoration of the 125 years of the foundation of the institute "must be a privileged occasion to give a new impulse to the desire repeated so many times by the founder, St. Rafaela Maria, that the life of every sister be 'a tapestry of faith and generosity'."

After referring to the difficulties the sisters face in carrying out their mission, due to conditions of extreme poverty and injustice, he declared that there were many occasions "in which obstacles to total identification with the mission are to be found in the lives of individuals and communities themselves, who at times surrender to tedium in the fulfillment of activities that are considered poorly recognized or that yield scarce results in the short term. In these circumstances, a true spirit of service must come to the fore, joyfully making the radical choice, above all, to seek and do the will of God."

The Holy Father expressed the gratitude of the Church to the sisters for their service "to evangelization, both through the testimony of life and the activity that you carry out in different fields of education, the care of spiritual centers, youth pastoral services and the promotion of the disadvantaged
in society."

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