‘Embrace with love the wounds of the world and the Church’, Pope tells Secular
Institutes
July 24, 2012: ‘Embrace love with the wounds of the world and the Church’ said Pope
Benedict XVI in his greetings sent on Monday to the congress of the World Conference
of Secular Institutes underway in Assisi, Italy. Signed by Vatican’s Secretary of
State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the message encourages the particular vocation of
consecrated lay men and women, which is rooted and centred in Christ, but lived within
a wider society.
The Congress has the theme of Listening to God 'in the furrows
of history': secularity speaks to the consecration. ‘This important theme’, said the
Pontiff, ‘emphasizes your identity as consecrated, living in the world the inner freedom
and the fullness of love that come from the evangelical counsels’.
Your vocation
is to be in the world assuming all weights and desires, with a more human look that
coincides with the divine, based on the knowledge that God writes his story of salvation
on the plot of the events of our history, the Pope explained.
Pope Benedict
pointed to three areas for the Congress to focus on, namely, the total gift of their
lives, their spiritual life and the training they undergo.
Your identity is
an important aspect of your mission in the Church: that is, to help her realize her
being in the world, the Pontiff said adding that ‘The work you are about to play then
dwell on the specific consecration of secular researching how secularity speak to
the consecration of your life as the characteristic features of Jesus - the chaste,
poor and obedient.’
Pope Benedict pointed to three areas for the Congress to
focus on. First, the total gift of your life as a response to a personal encounter
with life and love of God that you have discovered that God is everything for you,
you decided to give it all to God and to do so in a peculiar way. This requires extra
vigilance because your lifestyle gets the wealth, beauty and radical nature of the
evangelical counsels.
Second, the spiritual life. that desire for unity in
Christ which is to live the whole life of every Christian and especially of those
who answer the call of the total gift of self. Measuring the depth of your spirituality
are not many activities, but rather the ability to seek God in the heart of every
event and bring all things to Christ.
Thirdly, the training: You are looking
for content and method of training that makes you lay people and priests capable of
posing the question to the complexities of today's world, being open to the stress
from the relationship with your brothers that you meet on the streets, to engage in
a discernment of history to light of the Word of Life. Be creative, because the Spirit
builds new, looks capable of powered future and strong roots in Christ the Lord, to
know how to say also to our long experience of love that underlies the life of every
man. Embrace love with the wounds of the world and the Church.