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Illustration: The Marriage Feast of Cana by Hieronymus Bosch (c 1550)
Address of Pope Francis to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary
and the Sisters of the Divine Savior
Consistory Hall – Thursday, 19 September 2024
“Walking together, rekindling the gift of the Spirit in our midst to proclaim the Gospel and enflame all people”.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I am pleased to welcome you while you are experiencing your respective General Chapters.
I welcome you all, dear capitular men and women religious of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and I remind you that the celebration of a General Chapter does not respond to human logic or an institutional need, but a requirement of following Jesus in the sequela Christi.
This following always involves listening attentively to what the Holy Spirit proposes to us each day in order to live faithfully the identity and the mission proper to the Congregation.
As disciples, you are called to listen to the voice of Jesus, to contemplate more deeply and to be able to live and proclaim the love of God incarnate in him, especially through service to the most needy and through Eucharistic and Reconciliation prayer.
Only by following Christ with fidelity and docility, will your structures, as well as the spread of the spiritual and historical patrimony of the Congregation, be able to experience a renewed springtime that will make your charism shine at the present moment of human history.
The charism is the style that a Congregation has, the evangelical style, because the Gospel is inexhaustible; therefore it makes all styles possible.
May the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary urge you to find ever new forms of witness before your brothers and sisters and of collaboration in the work of God.
I therefore invite you to listen attentively to God’s will, which is not easy, and to take decisive steps in following Christ, which does not consist merely in learning a doctrine, but also in adopting a style of life. I assure you of my closeness and of my prayers, so that you may be renewed by inspired discernment and supported by evangelical values, and so that the desire to live united to Christ and to remain faithful to the founding charism may be strengthened in your hearts.
I greet you too, Sisters of the Divine Savior, who celebrate your General Chapter with a challenging theme: “Walking together, rekindling the gift of the Spirit in our midst to proclaim the Gospel and enflame all people”.
Four things: walking together – not against each other, rekindling the gift of the Spirit in our midst, proclaiming the Gospel and enflaming all people.
Go forward.
It recalls the foundation of your charism: the heartfelt prayer addressed by Jesus to the Father at the Last Supper for the salvation of all: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3).
And it is there, in the Upper Room, that I invite you to pause at length in prayer, especially during these days of the Chapter. It is there, in fact, that the flame of the Spirit is nourished, and from there you go out again to set the whole world on fire with your love, to serve those in need and to restore hope to those who are discouraged.
This is the legacy that Blessed Francis Mary of the Cross and Blessed Mary of the Angels left you, who wanted you to be a “universal missionary congregation”.
We are taught this by Mary, “guiding star” of the mission, who in the Gospel speaks little, listens much and cherishes in her heart.
These are also valid attitudes for us: to speak little (talk is a scourge, isn’t it?) – to share, to open up, but not to get lost in meaningless chatter; to listen a lot, in prayer, in silence, in attentiveness to others.
Sometimes we do not know how to listen: the other person is speaking and we respond halfway.
No: listen to everything, to the end.
Listen to the Lord too – and treasure it in your heart, to be apostles of hope in a world that needs it so much today.
And in this regard, I would like to conclude by recalling a characteristic feature of Our Lady: she never shows herself – this is strange – but always Jesus (see the extract from the Catechesis of 4 January 2023 in the footnote below). “Do whatever he tells you”.
This is Our Lady: she always points to Jesus. Never herself. “Look at me, for I am immaculate”…
Our Lady never says this. She always points to Jesus. This is what we must learn: to show Jesus to others, because for everyone, today and always, our hope is in the Lord, it is in Him (cf. Heb 10:23).
Dear sisters and brothers, I thank you for your visit and I invoke the light and strength of the Holy Spirit on your work in these days and on the future journey of your communities. I bless you with all my heart and I ask you to pray for me. But pray for me, not against me. Thank you very much.
______________________
Footnote: (extract from Wednesday Catechesis, 4 January 2023
The Virgin Mary is a great teacher of discernment: she speaks little, listens a lot, and cherishes in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19).
The three attitudes of Our Lady: she speaks little, listens a lot, and cherishes in her heart.
And the few times she speaks, she leaves a mark.
For example, in the Gospel of John there is a very short phrase uttered by Mary which is a mandate for Christians of all times: “Do whatever he tells you” (cf. 2:5).
It is curious: once I heard a very good, very pious elderly woman, who had not studied theology.
She was very simple. And she said to me, “Do you know what Our Lady always does?”
I don’t know, she embraces you, she calls you… “No.
The gesture Our Lady does is this” [she points with her finger].
I didn’t understand, and I asked, “What does it mean?”.
And the old lady replied, “She always points to Jesus”.
This is beautiful: Our Lady takes nothing for herself, she points to Jesus.
Do whatever Jesus tells you: that is what Our Lady is like.
Mary knows that the Lord speaks to the heart of each person and she asks for these words to be translated into actions and choices.
She knew how to do this more than any other person, and indeed she is present in the fundamental moments of Jesus’ life, especially in the supreme moment of death on the Cross.
