Address to the General Chapter OFMConv 1995
Address to the General Chapter of the Friars Minor Conventual
Rome, Monday, June 12, 1995
Dear Friars Minor Conventual:
1. I welcome you with joy, as your General Chapter concludes, which has given you the opportunity to pray together and reflect on the expectations and apostolic initiatives that your Franciscan family wishes to actively promote in the perspective of the third Christian millennium.
The Chapter has also had the task of appointing the new general minister and the council that should help him in the direction of the institute during the six-year term that is beginning. I greet Father Agostino Gardin, called to carry out the delicate position of minister. Since he comes from Padua, it is spontaneous to implore for him the light and protection of Saint Anthony, whose eighth centenary of his birth we are celebrating. My greetings also go to Father Lanfranco Serrini, who has led the Order for twelve years; I express my appreciation to him for the solicitude with which he has promoted missionary development and has generously accompanied the consolidation of the Franciscan presence in Eastern Europe. A cordial greeting, likewise, to each one of you and, through you, to your entire religious family: May the Lord grant you to deepen more and more in the spirit of the Poverello of Assisi and of his worthy successor Saint Anthony.
Return to source
2. A Chapter, dear brothers and sisters, always constitutes an invitation to return to the source, which is Christ, where each religious must daily find spiritual nourishment to fully live his condition as a consecrated soul. The effectiveness of religious witness is precisely in being the leaven of the kingdom of God and called to the perennial values of the Gospel. That is what the Church expects of you; and that is what the world also expects, perhaps without knowing it.
To respond to such a demanding task, you need the incessant inspiration that comes only from an intimate and deep contact with the Lord, in prayer and in meek adherence to his will. Saint Francis understood this very well and left it as a commitment to you, his spiritual children, who try to live his contemplative spirit, recognizing in him the "man made prayer".
The Gospel of Peace
3. When speaking of the Poverello, the thought goes almost naturally to peace, a reality so longed for but also so threatened. I have had the grace to visit the tomb of Saint Francis of Assisi four times, and I have entrusted him with the present and the future of Italy, of which he is patron. To him, seraphic in his fervor, I have entrusted on several occasions peace in Europe and, above all, in the Balkans.
May Saint Francis reach the gift of true peace to the peoples who are at war. Too much blood has already been spilled. Saint Francis, faithful herald of Christ, teaches us that only by spreading and practicing the gospel of peace and love is it possible to transform the face of the world and make it more in line with God's plan.
May God please that, through his intercession, the spirit of Assisi is consolidated more and more, which since October 27, 1986 continues to give hope to believers and many people of good will.
4. During the Chapter work you have reflected on another value that shines forth in your seraphic father and finds singular importance also in the life of Saint Anthony: love for the Gospel, the word of the living God. That love, which is at the origin of the vocation of Saint Francis, passed intact to the preaching of Saint Anthony, whom the Church venerates as an "evangelical doctor."
How can we not think here of the sanctuary of Padua, where, especially this year, thousands of pilgrims go? Your new Minister General, who has lived for a long time in the shadow of the Basilica of Saint Anthony, knows very well that consoling reality of popular faith. I am sure that he will do his best so that fidelity to the Gospel in the typical form expressed by Saint Anthony finds renewed impetus both in the religious and laity who make up the great Franciscan family, as well as in the faithful entrusted to the pastoral care of the Friars. Conventual Minors.
Missionary testimony
5. In your founder and in his holy children the Order finds the charismatic continuity of the Franciscan tradition, to incarnate it in the new situations of our time. Among those saints, I am pleased to remember Saint Maximilian Kolbe, patron of our difficult century. His memory is uniquely current this year as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. This saint joins the legion of Franciscan witnesses to encourage you to continue with renewed impulse your missionary witness, sustained by the protection of the Immaculate Virgin.
Among the new frontiers of your apostolate, as you very well emphasized during the General Chapter, the commitment in favor of Christian unity stands out, which I have just re-proposed as a priority requirement of the Church's apostolic action with a view to to the third millennium, the attention to the conservation of creation, the courageous response to the challenges of the new evangelization and the missionary presence in the countries victims of recent and prolonged religious persecutions.
Regarding this last aspect, I know that you are committed to the service of the brothers who need to rebuild what was destroyed by the often long and heavy oppressions. The voice that spoke to Saint Francis repeats to you today: "Go and repair my Church." And you have responded with enthusiasm, remembering the words of the Lord: "As much as you did to one of these least brothers of mine, you did it to me" (Mt 25,40). Be assured that the Lord will bless all your efforts.
Dear brothers and sisters, as I thank the Lord for the service that your Order renders to the Church and the Apostolic See, I entrust to him the purposes of this General Chapter, so that abundant fruits may spring from it. I invoke for all, in a particular way, the intercession of Saint Anthony, on the eve of his liturgical feast, and I assure a special prayer for all the brothers of your Order, as well as for all those who benefit from your pastoral action. With these sentiments, I bless you from the bottom of my heart.
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