Pope says Missionaries of Charity shelter in Vatican is witness of God's love
(May 22, 2013) Marking the 25th anniversary of the Missionaries of Charity soup
kitchen and women's shelter at the Vatican, Pope Francis said that while unbridled
capitalism has taught people that money is more important than anything else, works
of Christian charity witness to God's love for each person. "Unbridled capitalism
has taught the logic of profit at any cost, of giving, in order to receive, of exploitation
without looking at the person. The results of such attitudes, we see in the crisis
we are now living through," Pope Francis said on Tuesday (May 21), visiting the
shelter called "Dono di Maria" or "Gift of Mary" run by the nuns of Blessed Mother
Teresa of Kolkata. The Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity – Sr. Prema,
placed a garland of flowers around the Pope’s neck as he arrived for the visit. The
shelter is inside the Vatican walls near Paul VI audience hall, and serves meals
to about 60 people each day and offers accommodation to some 50 to 70 women. "In
these years, how many times you have bent down to those in need like the good Samaritan,"
the pope told the sisters. "You have looked into their eyes; you have given them
a hand to help them up. How many mouths you have fed with patience and dedication.
How many wounds, especially spiritual ones, you have bound up." Pope Francis said
modern men and women need to recover their understanding of what a gift is, what it
means to offer something without expecting anything in return and what it means to
be in solidarity with the suffering. For Christians, he said, charity is not a social
obligation, but a sharing of "the love of God, the charity of God." Pope Francis said
the shelter, should be "a strong reminder to us all - the church and the city of
Rome - to be ever more a family, a 'home' that is ready to welcome, to give attention,
to foster brotherhood."Blessed John Paul II gave the building to Blessed Mother Teresa
of Calcutta May 21, 1988, and visited the facility and the people it serves eight
times. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI also visited the shelter. Pope Francis said that
between the beatified pope and the beatified founder of the Missionaries of Charity,
the Dono di Maria is "something between saints and between the blessed." He told the
women who live at the shelter that the house really is theirs since it was planned
and opened for them. He said “While it may have been a gift to you in your need,
you are a gift to this house and to the church. You tell us that loving God and your
neighbour isn't something abstract, but profoundly concrete; that means seeing in
every person the face of the Lord to be served and to serve him concretely. Source
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