In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Peace be with you!

Welcome, dear brothers and sisters! I greet in particular the Superiors General – both were confirmed – the Counsellors and the Capitulars of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual and those of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of Captives, as well as the delegates of the Third Order and of the lay groups.

In order to be able to welcome Franciscans and Trinitarians together, I recalled a painting located in the apse of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, which depicts an audience of which this could be a fine re-evocation. Indeed, the image shows Pope Innocent III receiving Saint Francis and Saint Juan de Mata together, to honour their great contribution to the reform of religious life.

It is interesting to note that Saint Francis is depicted kneeling with an enormous open book, almost as if he were about to say to the Pontiff: “Your Holiness, I ask only to live the rule of the Holy Gospel sine glossa” (cf. Text 14-15). Saint Juan de Mata, instead, is standing and holds in his hand the Rule that he has drawn up together with the Pontiff. Whereas Saint Francis demonstrates his docility to the Church, presenting his project not as his own but as a divine gift, Saint Juan de Mata shows the approved text, after study and discernment, as the culmination of a task that was absolutely necessary to accomplish the purpose that God has inspired. The two attitudes, far from being opposed to one another, would have enlightened each other and been a guideline for the service that the Holy See has provided to all charisms ever since.

God inspired in these two Saints not only a spiritual path of service, but also the desire to speak with the Successor of Peter about the gift received by the Spirit, so as to make it available to the Church. Saint Francis expounded to the Pope the need to follow Jesus without reserve, without other ends, without ambiguousness or artifice. Saint Juan de Mata expressed this truth with words that would then prove to be fundamental, and which Saint Francis would make his own. A good example would be that of living “without anything of one’s own”, without anything “hidden in the chamber of the pocket or the heart”, as Pope Francis emphasized (cf. Address to the Canonesses of the Order of the Holy Spirit, 5 December 2024). Another of these terms expresses the need for such devotion to be transformed into service, that the superior is perceived as a ministry, that is, he who makes himself the smallest in order to be a servant to all. It is interesting to note how Saint Matthew’s verse (cf. 20:27) has influenced the vocabulary of religious life as a whole, because calling a prior, master, magister or minister shapes the entire concept of authority as service.

To make this gift current, you Trinitarians wanted to focus on the purpose of your Institute: to bring consolation to those who cannot live the faith in freedom. During these months you have prayed this intention, following the words of Saint Paul: “Persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor 4:9), which inspire the motto of your Chapter. I join in this prayer, and I also ask God the Trinity that this may be one of the fruits of your assembly: that you may not cease to remember in your prayer and in your daily efforts those who are persecuted due to their faith. That part, the third part - concerning the persecuted - is, according to the teaching of Saint Augustine, the part of God and that which marks the vocation of the liberator of his people (cf. Questions on the Heptateuch, Bk. II, 15). Moreover, this attention towards the most suffering members of the Church will attract the attention of vocations, the faithful and people of good will to this reality and will keep you available for the frontier services you carry out in the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

Another essential element of your purpose, Friars Minor Conventual, in this Chapter, was to carry out discernment on the regulations of the General and Provincial Chapters, because in these, “one speaks about matters of God”. It is not our personal interest that should move us, but that of Christ; it is his Spirit that we must listen to, first and foremost, in order to “write the future in the present”, as the motto of your Chapter says. Listen to him in the voice of your brother, in the discernment of your community, in attentiveness to the signs of the times, and in the appeals of the Magisterium. Dear sons of Saint Francis of Assisi, on the eight-hundredth anniversary of the composition of the Canticle of the Creatures, or Brother Sun, I urge each one of you personally, and in each of your fraternities, to be a living reminder of the primacy of the praise of God in Christian life. Moreover, let me not forget that you Conventuals are also celebrating the anniversary of your renewed presence in the Far East.

Dear friends, I would like to conclude this meeting with the Praises of God Most High, the trisagion written by Saint Francis: “You are the holy Lord God who does wonderful things. You are strong. You are great. You are the Most High. You are the almighty King. You, holy Father, King of heaven and earth” (Franciscan Sources, 261).

Thank you to you all, and may God bless you!
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Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 20 June 2025