In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Peace be with you!
Good day and welcome to everyone

Dear brothers and sisters,

Your Eminence,

I am very pleased to meet you on the occasion of your Chapters and Assemblies.

I greet the Superiors General present, and all of you who are engaged in efforts of listening and discernment in these days. Some of your Congregations are carrying out elections, and this too is a great gift for the Church and a great responsibility, which we entrust to the Lord together.

Your Institutes are a “splendid and varied testimony, reflecting the multiplicity of gifts bestowed by God on founders and foundresses who, in openness to the working of the Holy Spirit, successfully interpreted the signs of the times and responded wisely to new needs” (JOHN PAUL II, Vita Consecrata, 9).

Indeed, Brigida di Gesù Morello, in the seventeenth century, when society did not always fully recognize the value of formation for young women, began an initiative for the promotion of the dignity of women that would bear much fruit in the future. Similarly, two centuries later in Rome, Saint Gaspare del Bufalo dedicated himself, through popular missions and spreading devotion to the Blood of Christ, to opposing the rampant spirit of “impiety and irreligion” that afflicted his time. A similar undertaking commenced in France with Father Jean-Claude Colin, who was inspired in his apostolate by the spirit of humility and discretion of Mary of Nazareth. Finally, in the 1990s, following in the footsteps of Saint Francis and Saint Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate were born.

This is the multifaceted legacy that brings you here today. Now, let us highlight some of its unifying characteristics.

The first is the importance of community life in the religious vocation you share, as a place of sanctification and a source of inspiration, witness and strength in your apostolate. In it, “the power of the Holy Spirit at work in one individual passes at the same time to all… Not only does each enjoy his own gift, but makes it abound by sharing it with others; and each one enjoys the fruits of the other’s gift as if they were his own” (ibid., 42). It is no coincidence that the Holy Spirit inspired those who preceded you to join the sisters and brothers whom Providence placed on their path, so that goodness would multiply and grow through the communion of good people. This was the case at the beginning of your foundations and throughout the centuries, and the same continues to take place today.

The second aspect I would like to focus on is the vital importance of obedience as an act of love in religious consecration. Jesus gave us an example of this in his relationship with the Father: “I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (Jn 5:30). In this regard, Saint Augustine puts great emphasis on the close relationship that exists between obedience and love in Christian life. “You all love charity,” he said in a sermon; “now obedience is the daughter of charity..., the root is hidden, the fruit is out in the open. I do not trust what is stuck in the soil, unless I can see what’s hanging from the branches. You have charity, do you? Show me its fruit. Let me see obedience… Let me have the child to hug, so that I can recognize the mother” (Sermon 359 B, 12). Talking about obedience is not very fashionable today because it is considered a renunciation of freedom. But that is not the case. Obedience, in its deepest meaning of active and generous listening to others, is a great act of love by which we accept dying to ourselves so that our brothers and sisters may grow and live. When it is professed and lived with faith, obedience reveals a luminous path of self-giving that can help the world rediscover the value of sacrifice, the capacity for lasting relationships, and the maturity in community that goes beyond the “feelings” of the moment by establishing itself in fidelity. Obedience is a school of freedom in love.

Finally, the third aspect I would like to focus on is being attentive to the signs of the times. Without this open and perceptive gaze towards the real demands of our brothers and sisters, none of your Congregations would have been founded. Your founders were capable of observing, evaluating, loving and then setting out, even at the risk of great suffering and failure, to serve the real needs of their brothers and sisters, recognizing the voice of God in the poverty of their neighbors. That is why it is important for you to move forward in the living memory of those courageous beginnings, not in the sense of doing “an exercise in archaeology or the cultivation of mere nostalgia, [but of] following in the footsteps of past generations in order to grasp the high ideals, and the vision and values which inspired them, beginning with the founders and foundresses and the first communities” (Francis, To All Consecrated People on the Occasion of the Year of Consecrated Life, 1), identifying their potential, perhaps still unexplored, in order to put them to good use in the service of the “here and now.”

Dear friends, I know how much good you do every day in so many parts of the world — good that is often unseen by human eyes, but not by God’s! I thank you and bless you from my heart, encouraging you to continue your mission with faith and generosity. Thank you!