Vatican City, 5 June 2015 (VIS) –
This morning in the Consistory Hall the Pope received in audience 120
participants in the General Chapter of the Priests of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus (Dehonians), based on the theme “Merciful, in
community, with the poor”. Francis took the opportunity to express
his best wishes to the new Superior General, Fr. Heiner Wilmer, and
to greet all the Dehonians who work “often in difficult conditions
in various parts of the world”.
“Religious life is indicated as a
fully evangelical life, in which the beatitudes are fully realised”,
remarked the Pope. “Therefore, as consecrated persons, you are
required to be merciful. This means, first and foremost, living in
profound communion with God in prayer, in meditation on the Sacred
Scripture, in the celebration of the Eucharist, so that all our life
may be a path of growth in God's mercy. To the extent to which we
make ourselves aware of the freely-given love of the Lord and welcome
it in ourselves, our tenderness, understanding and goodness towards
the people around us will also grow”.
Religious life is also “the
cohabitation of believers who feel they are loved by God and who seek
to love Him. … In the experience of God's mercy and His love you
will also find the point of the harmonisation of your communities.
This necessitates the commitment to increasingly savour the mercy
that your brethren show to you and to offer them the wealth of your
mercy”, said the bishop of Rome to the Dehonians, recalling in this
regard the example of their founder, Fr. Leon Dehon (1843-1925).
“Mercy is the word that summarises
the Gospel; we might say that it is the 'face' of Christ, that face
that He showed when he went towards everyone, when he healed the
sick, when he shared a table with the sinners, and especially when,
nailed to the cross, he forgave: there we find the face of divine
mercy. And the Lord calls upon us to be 'channels' of this love
firstly towards the least among us, the poorest, who are privileged
in His eyes. Let yourselves be continually challenged by the
situations of fragility and poverty with which you come into contact,
and endeavour to offer in the appropriate ways the witness of charity
that the Spirit infuses in your hearts”. The Holy Father concluded,
“Mercy will allow you to open up promptly to current needs and to
be industriously present in the new areopagus of evangelisation,
prioritising – even if this may involve sacrifices – openness
towards those situations of extreme need, symptomatic of the maladies
of today's society”.
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