2012-07-24 19:09:51

‘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.








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