Community from Pope Francis

The Magnificat Community was present at the III World Congress of Ecclesial Movements and New Communities. Anaudience with the Holy Father was held yesterday.

Here are the words of Pope Francis:

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

I welcome you on the occasion of the Congress you are celebrating with the support of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. I thank Cardinal Ryłko, also for his words, and Bishop Clemens. At the center of your attention these days are two essential elements of Christian life: conversion and mission. They are intimately linked. Indeed, without an authentic conversion of heart and mind, the Gospel is not proclaimed, but if we do not open ourselves to mission, conversion is not possible and faith becomes sterile. The Movements and New Communities that you represent are now projected to the stage of ecclesial maturity, which requires a vigilant attitude of permanent conversion in order to make the evangelizing thrust ever more alive and fruitful. I wish, therefore, to offer you some suggestions for your journey of faith and ecclesial life.

1. First of all, it is necessary to preserve the freshness of charisma: may we not spoil that freshness! Freshness of the charism! Always renewing the “first love” (cf. Rev. 2:4). For with time there grows the temptation to settle, to become rigid in reassuring but sterile patterns. The temptation to cage the Spirit: this is a temptation! However, “reality is more important than the idea” (cf. Exhort. ap. Evangelii gaudium, 231-233); if a certain institutionalization of the charism is necessary for its very survival, we should not delude ourselves that external structures can guarantee the action of the Holy Spirit. The novelty of your experiences does not consist in the methods and forms, the novelty, although they are important, but in the disposition to respond with renewed enthusiasm to the Lord’s call: it is this evangelical courage that has allowed the birth of your movements and new communities. If forms and methods are defended for themselves, they become ideological, far from the reality that is constantly changing; closed to the newness of the Spirit, they will end up stifling the very charism that generated them. It is necessary to always return to the sources of charisms and you will find the momentum to face challenges. You did not make a school of spirituality like this; you did not make an institution of spirituality like this; you do not have a little group… No! Movement! Always on the road, always on the move, always open to God’s surprises that come in tune with the first call of the movement, that fundamental charism.

2. Another issue concerns how to welcome and accompany the people of our time, especially young people (cf. Exhort. ap. Evangelii gaudium, 105-106). We are part of a wounded humanity, -we must tell ourselves this! – where all educational agencies, especially the most important one, the family, have serious difficulties almost everywhere in the world. People today experience serious identity problems and have difficulty making their own choices; therefore, they have a disposition to be conditioned, to delegate important life decisions to others. We must resist the temptation to replace people’s freedom and to direct them without waiting for them to really mature. Each person has his or her own time, walks in his or her own way, and we must accompany this journey. Moral or spiritual progress achieved by appealing to people’s immaturity is a seeming success, doomed to founder. Better a few, but always going without seeking the show! Christian education, on the other hand, requires patient accompaniment that knows how to wait for each person’s time, as the Lord does with each one of us: the Lord is patient with us! Patience is the only way to truly love and bring people to a sincere relationship with the Lord.

3. Another indication is not to forget that the most precious good, the seal of the Holy Spirit, is communion. It is the supreme grace that Jesus won for us on the cross, the grace that as the risen Lord he unceasingly asks for us, showing his glorious wounds to the Father: “As you, Father, are in me and I in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me”(Jn . 17:21). For the world to believe that Jesus is Lord it needs to see fellowship among Christians, but if you see divisions, rivalry and backbiting, the terrorism of gossip, please…if you see these things, whatever the cause, how can you evangelize? Remember this other principle: “Unity prevails over conflict” (cf. Exhort. ap. Evangelii gaudium, 226-230), because the brother is worth much more than our personal positions: for him Christ shed his blood (cf. 1 Pet . 1:18-19), for my ideas he shed nothing! True communion, then, cannot exist in a movement or a new community unless it is integrated into the larger communion that is our Holy Mother Hierarchical Church. The whole is greater than the part (cf. Exhort. ap. Evangelii gaudium, 234-237) and the part makes sense in relation to the whole. Moreover, communion also consists in addressing together and unitedly the most important issues, such as life, family, peace, the fight against poverty in all its forms, religious and educational freedom. In particular, movements and communities are called to work together to help heal the wounds produced by a globalized mentality that puts consumption at the center, forgetting God and the essential values of existence.

To achieve ecclesial maturity, therefore, maintain – I repeat – the freshness of the charism, respect the freedom of people and always seek communion. Do not forget, however, that to reach this goal, conversion must be missionary: the strength to overcome temptations and inadequacies comes from the profound joy of proclaiming the Gospel, which is the basis of all your charisms. In fact, “when the Church calls to evangelizing commitment, she does no more than point Christians to the true dynamism of personal fulfillment” (Exhortation ap. Evangelii gaudium, 10), the real motivation to renew one’s life, because mission is participation in the mission of Christ who always precedes us and accompanies us in evangelization.

Dear brothers and sisters, you have already borne much fruit for the Church and the whole world, but you will bear even greater fruit with the help of the Holy Spirit, who always arouses and renews gifts and charisms, and with the intercession of Mary, who never ceases to succor and accompany her children. Go forth: always on the move… Never stop! Always on the move! I assure you of my prayers and ask you to pray for me — I really need it — while I bless you from my heart.

Now I ask you, all together, to pray to Our Lady, who has experienced this experience to always keep the freshness of the first encounter with God, to go forward with humility, but always on the way, respecting people’s time. And then also to never tire of having this missionary heart.

Hail Mary…