Vatican City, 2 February 2016 (VIS) –
The following are extensive extracts of the Holy Father's
extemporaneous address to the participants in the Jubilee of
Consecrated Life, which took place yesterday in the Paul VI Hall.
This afternoon in St. Peter's Basilica he will celebrate the Mass to
conclude the Year of Consecrated Life.
"I have prepared a text for this
occasion regarding the themes of consecrated life and three of its
most important pillars: prophecy, closeness and hope.
"Men and women religious – that
is, men and women consecrated to the service of the Lord who follow
in the Church this road of poverty and of chaste love that leads to a
paternity and maternity for all the Church, an obedience … that is
not military, no; that is discipline, it is something else. It is the
obedience of giving one's heart. And this is prophecy. 'But don't you
want to do something else?' 'Yes, but according to the rules I must
do this. … And if something isn't clear to me, I speak with the
superior, and after dialogue, I obey'. This is prophecy, against the
seed of anarchy, that the devil sows. … Prophecy means telling
people that there is a road of happiness, greatness, a road that
fills you with joy, that is indeed Jesus' way. It is the road of
being close to Jesus. Prophecy is a gift, it is a charism that must
be asked for from the Holy Spirit: that I might know how to say that
word, at the right moment; that I do the right thing at the right
moment; that all my life may be a prophecy".
The other word is closeness. Men and
women are consecrated, not to distance themselves from people and to
live in comfort; no, to become closer to and to understand the life
of Christians and non-Christians, their suffering, their problems,
the many things that can be understood only if a consecrated man or
woman is close to them. … Consecrated life is not a status that
allows us to watch others from a distance. Consecrated life must lead
us to closeness to the people: physical and spiritual closeness,
knowing the people. … Who is the person closest to a consecrated
man or woman? His brother or her sister in the community. And also a
pleasant, a good closeness, with love. … One way of alienating
people is to gossip … the terrorism of gossip. A person who gossips
is a terrorist in his or her own community, who throws words against
others like a bomb, and then moves on. … The apostle James said
that the most difficult virtue, the most difficult human and
spiritual virtue to have, is that of controlling one's tongue. …
'But Father, if there is something, a defect, something to be
corrected?'. You say it directly to the person: you have this
attitude that bothers me, or is not good. Or if this would not be
appropriate – because at times it is not prudent – then you can
say it to the person who can remedy the situation, who can resolve
the problem, and to no-one else. 'What? In the chapter?' Yes! In
public, all that you feel you must say, because there is the
temptation not to say things there, and then outside: 'Have you seen
the superior? Than why didn't you say it there, in the chapter? Is
this clear? These are virtues of closeness".
"And then, hope. I confess that it
troubles me greatly when I see the decline in vocations, when I
receive bishops and ask them, 'How many seminarians do you have?',
and they tell me, 'Four or five...'. When, in your religious
communities – male or female – you have one or two novices, and
the community is ageing … When there are monasteries, great
monasteries … that are kept going by four or five elderly nuns …
Faced with all this, I am tempted to ask, against hope, 'Lord, what
is happening? Why has the womb of consecrated life become so barren?
Some congregations have experimented … what do they do? They
welcome, 'Come, come, come!'. And then there are problems inside. No.
It is necessary to welcome in a serious way. We must discern well if
this is a true vocation and help it to grow. And I think that,
counter to the temptation to lose hope, that leads us to this
barrenness, we must pray more, and pray tirelessly. ...'Our
congregation needs sons, daughters …': the Lord Who has been so
generous will not fail to keep His promise. But we must ask Him. We
must knock on the door of His heart. Because there is a danger – it
is unpleasant, but I have to say it – when a religious Congregation
sees that it has no sons and starts to become increasingly small, it
becomes attached to money. And you know that money is the dung of the
devil. When they cannot have the grace of vocations and sons, they
think that money will save their lives, and they think about their
old age; that they may not lack this or that. And this is not hope!
Hope comes only from the Lord! Money will never give you this".
"I thank you for what you do.
Consecrated persons, each one with his or her own charism. And I
would like to underline what women religious and nuns do. What would
the Church be without nuns? I have said this before: when you go to
hospital, to colleges, parishes, neighbourhoods, missions, there are
men and women who have given their lives. ...When you go to a
cemetery and see the many missionaries and nuns who died at the age
of forty, from sicknesses, from the fevers they caught, who burned
their lives. These are saints, these are seeds! We must ask the Lord
to look to these cemeteries and to see what our antecedents did, and
to give us more vocations, because we need them".
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