Vatican City, 10 September 2015 (VIS) –
This morning in the Paul VI Hall the Pope received in audience the
participants in the International Meeting of the Equipes Notre Dame
(Teams of Our Lady, END), held in Rome on the theme, “Here I am
Lord, send me”. The Equipes are a lay movement focusing on married
spirituality, established in response to the needs of couples to live
fully the sacrament of marriage, using its own method and exploring
the complex reality of married couples today. The END were founded in
France in 1938 upon the initiative of a number of couples and the
priest Fr. Henri Caffarel, whose cause for beatification has been
received in Rome.
Recalling the upcoming Synod on the
family, Francis invited the members of the END to pray for the Synod
Fathers and for what they must reflect upon in the assembly on the
“vital cell of our societies … in the difficult current cultural
context”, and devoted his discourse primarily to the missionary
role of the Equipes Notre Dame.
“Christian couples and families are
often in the best position to announce Jesus Christ to other
families, to support them, to strengthen and encourage them. What you
live in the couple and the family – accompanied by the charism
typical of your movement – this profound and unique joy that the
Lord enables you to experience in the intimacy of domestic life,
between joy and suffering, you must bear witness to … so that
others, in turn, take the same path”.
The Pope encouraged all the couples to
live deeply the “concrete aspects of commitment” of the movement,
such as prayer in couples and in the family, a “beautiful and
necessary tradition that has always supported the faith and hope of
Christians, and unfortunately abandoned in many regions of the
world”. He also emphasised the importance of monthly dialogue
between spouses, “that well-known and challenging 'need to sit
down' that is counter to the habits of our frenetic and agitated
world riven with individualism”. Finally, participation in the life
of a team brings “the wealth of teaching and sharing, as well as
the help and comfort of friendship”. In this respect Francis
underlined the mutual fruitfulness of meeting with the accompanying
priests, and thanked the couples of the END for the support and
encouragement in the ministry of their priests “who always find, in
contact with your Equipes and your families, priestly joy, fraternal
presence, emotional balance and spiritual paternity”.
The missionary task of the movement is
of supreme importance and the Holy Father indicated various fields of
action, such as accompanying young couples and forming them in faith
before and after marriage, or closeness to wounded families, “of
whom there are so many these days, due to unemployment, … health
problems, bereavement … the imbalance caused by distance or
absence, or a climate of violence. We must have the courage to enter
into contact with these families, in a discreet but generous way,
materially, humanly and spiritually, in those circumstances in which
they are vulnerable”.
Finally, the Pope encouraged couples to
“be instruments of the mercy of Christ and the Church towards those
whose marriage has failed. Never forget that your conjugal fidelity
is a gift from God, and that mercy has been shown to every one of us.
A united and happy couple can understand better than any other, from
within, the harm and the suffering caused by abandonment, betrayal,
and a lack of love. It is necessary, therefore, that you bring your
witness and your experience to help Christian communities to discern
the real situations in which these people find themselves, to welcome
them with their wounds, and to help them to journey in faith and in
truth, under the gaze of Christ the Good Shepherd, to take part in
the life of the Church in an appropriate way. Nor must you forget the
unspeakable suffering of the children who experience these painful
family situations.
