Message of His Eminence Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to the Participants of the XXV° General Chapter of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (Jul 1-13, 2017)
To the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa gathered for the XXV° General Chapter – Rome
I am most happy to warmly greet you Mother Carmela Sammut, Superior General, and all of the Sisters participating in your XXV° General Chapter, which is a particularly graced moment in the life of your religious community. General Chapters gather Sisters from many different countries and diverse cultures to listen and to share with one another, attentive to the voice of the Spirit that brings to life the memory of your Founders. In this context you are called to confront with all of the richness and diversity of experience and expectations of your communities, all of the many and varied apostolic tasks in which you are involved, as you desire to make the charism of your Institute over more effective in the service of Christ and His Church. On this occasion, which is a moment of grace and renewal, I want to offer you a word of encouragement and hope.
The theme that you have chosen for your chapter assembly, Bearers of hope, listening to the voice of the Spirit, moving forward together towards the peripheries, has tweaked my interest. It offers a number of Ideas, among which stands out the theological virtue of hope. Along with hope other elements are emerge: motherhood, listening, going out, and communion.
Pope Benedict XVI emphasised that Redemption is offered to us in the senor that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey (Spe Salvi, 1). Christian hope is born of the Resurrection of Christ, which opens the possibility of beginning the journey anew, of returning to Jerusalem like the disciples on the road to Emmaus. when they discovered the Risen Lord (Lk 24, 33). Indeed, a baptized person, and even more so someone consecrated to the Lord, cannot live without hope, otherwise that person’s life is condemned to insignificance and becomes unbearable. Hope it the remedy for pessimism, fatalism, mistrust, and for all other spiritual crises.
It is unique to a woman to carry new life within her womb. As women, religious Sisters are called to live fully and fruitfully a spiritual motherhood. The Church as Mother, modeled after Mary, has the mission of carrying Christ in her womb. Dear Sisters, carry Christ in your hearts. Like Mary, this conception is a fruit of listening to the Holy Spirit. She listened to the Angel of the Lord and became the Mother of God.
Listening to the voice of the Spirit is an essential requirement for the interpretation of the gift of the charism and in making it actual and fruitful in every place and in every age. Open yourselves to the voice of the Holy Spirit. so that this same Spirit might continue to breath upon you like the wind, with the fire of love that melts the iciness of egoism, and irrigates with new life that which is dry and fruitless. May the Holy Spirit fill your hearts and make them burn with the love of God, reviving in them a living hope, enflaming them with a deep desire for holiness, reinforcing in them a profound communion and pushing them out towards the peripheries.
Pope Franca invites us to this dynamic reality, faithful to the model of the Master. It is vital that the Church today goes out to announce the Gospel to everyone, in every place and on every occasion. The Church, as a Mother, has the mission of carrying Christ into the world. Like Mary, who conceived the Lord and carried him to her cousin Elisabeth, the Church is called to carry the Lord into the world. This means leaving behind my comfort and courageously going out, without fear or delay, to all of the peripheries that are in need of the light of the Gospel. It is up to the General Chapter to discern the road upon which the Lord will ask you to walk. In this perspective, as Pope Francis says, one needs a missionary conversion that demands the abandonment of the comfortable criterion of “we have always done it this way” when deciding on pastoral initiatives. I, therefore, invite you all to be bold and creative in your Chapter deliberations in identifying the peripheries that are waiting for your presence and apostolic witness.
I cannot but encourage you to go forward with enthusiasm. Open your hearts to welcome the interior movement of the grace of God. Open wide your vision to recognize the most authentic and pressing needs of society and of a generation that is changing. Be prophetic witnesses everywhere.
As you now engage in the work of the General Chapter, during which you wilt reflect on the apostolic journey that your religious family will have to follow, remaining true to your Founders, Cardinal Charles Lavigerie and Mother Marie Salomé, I assure you of my spiritual communion in prayer.
Dearer Sisters, I pray that the Blessed Virgin Mary will make all of your efforts fruitful. I implore the Patron saints of the missions, Saint Francis Xavier and the Little Flower, St Therese of the Child Jesus, that your Chapter may truly be successful. May the Blessings of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon you, Reverend Mother, upon all of the Religious gathered for Chapter and upon every member of your Religious Institute.
Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples
Piazza di Spagna, April 29, 2017
Feast of St Catherine of Siena
