BEING CHRISTIAN MEANS ACCEPTING COMMITMENT TO APOSTOLATE

VATICAN CITY, SEP 21, 2003 (VIS) - Made public today was a Message from the Holy Father to Bishop Gastone Simoni of Prati, Italy on the 350th anniversary of the institution of the same diocese on September 22, 1653 by Pope Innocent X.

In the Message, dated September 8, feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, the Pope recalls that this year also marks the 500th anniversary of the founding of the monastery of the Dominican Sisters of Sts. Vincent and Catherine of Ricci. May the memory of this "great mystic of the 16th century," St. Catherine, in addition to that of other saints and blesseds "who have enriched the Church in Prato, continue to be an example for the entire diocesan community and a stimulus for those who are looking for truth and also for those, too worried about worldly matters, who do not know how to raise their gaze to the heavens."

"In the current social and cultural context," he continues, "the affluence of material goods, the exasperated care of self, and the needs created by a consumeristic society risk obscuring the interior voice of God Who constantly invites us to keep strong our personal alliance with Him. Today there is the danger of reducing the faith to a religious sentiment lived out only in private, and forgetting that being Christian means accepting the commitment to be apostles of Christ in the world."

John Paul II concludes by expressing the desire that this anniversary be "a providential occasion to understand better that the vocation to sanctity is for everyone and that we must propose it with courage and patience to the younger generations."
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