07091983 JPII address OFMConv General Chapter

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 At the 192nd General Chapter of the Conventuals, held in Assisi, Fr. Lanfranco Serrini was elected as the new Minister General. On July 9, 1983, the Pope addressed to the members of the Chapter the following speech.

1. With sincere affection I greet all of you, members of the General Chapter of the Friars Minor Conventual, who, gathered in Assisi, near the venerated tomb of your seraphic Father, have given your great Franciscan family the 116 Minister General of the Order in the person of Fr. Lanfranco Serrini; I congratulate him on this election and, above all, I express my most fervent wishes that, following in the footsteps of Saint Francis, he will carry out the task to which he has been called, in the best possible way, and be able to achieve total success in his government, or better, in the service of the 5,000 Conventual Brothers, scattered throughout the world.

I also express my appreciation and gratitude to all of you, chapter fathers, for the valuable contribution of suggestions and proposals that you are offering in this important assembly, in order to review the Constitutions and the General Statutes in the context of the new Code of Canon Law, as well as in relation to the commitment that you have assumed to approve the "Directory of Formation", in which the entire Order, at different levels, has worked in the course of these last two years. I was also pleased to learn that, among the many reasons that have called you together, there is also that of preparing the text of a "Franciscan Ongoing Formation Course" for the religious of the Order, with particular attention to educators.

2. The deep affection that I have for your Franciscan family -and which is also confirmed by my two pilgrimages to the tomb of Saint Francis: one a few days after my election to the Chair of Peter, and another on the occasion of the VIII centenary of his birth of the Saint - urges me to express to you some thoughts that your presence has aroused in my mind.

You are Friars Minor Conventual and you want to preserve and authentically live the charism that your inspired Founder has left you as an inheritance. To this end, given that you are immersed in a society in continuous transformation, it is important that you ask yourselves about what is essential and irreplaceable in the type of life that you have embraced, responding to the Franciscan vocation. It seems to me that one thing that cannot be changed or replaced is, above all, the spirit of renunciation, typical of the "Poverello" of Assisi. One cannot fully live your charism without accepting discipline with perfect joy, without loving the Rule, which makes one strong and free, without embracing self-sacrifice, vigilance of one's own thinking and one's own style of life and, above all, without having The words of the Lord are firmly imprinted on the heart: "Any one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple" (Lk 14:33).

The Friar Minor Conventual is a man detached from the greed to possess, and therefore does not share the common style of life based on the search for temporal prosperity: he, following the example of the seraphic Father, shuns everything that the world pursues, seeking, on the contrary, what the world despises, that is, joyful poverty, interior recollection, transparent and chaste life, voluntary penance and serene submission to superiors, which are the manifest signs of the will of God.

In order to be a reliable witness of the eternal truths in the midst of this world, the Conventual Brother must make his own the experience of Saint Paul, which is also that of all the saints, and repeat with them: «We do not fix our eyes on visible things, but in the invisible ones; for the visible ones are temporary; the invisible, eternal” (2 Cor 4:18). Therefore, the axis on which his whole life must revolve is the search for God and prayer, which free man from all earthly conditioning, restoring his true identity. To this end, Saint Francis “spent all his time in holy recollection, so that wisdom would penetrate his soul, seeming to recede if he did not see that he was advancing with each step. If there were visits from lay people or other chores, he would run back to the retreat, interrupting them without waiting for them to finish. The world no longer had pleasures for him, sustained with the sweetness of heaven; and the pleasures of God had made him too delicate to enjoy the coarse pleasures of men” (2 Cel 94).

This admirable example will serve as a continual encouragement for you to react against some modern tendencies that, in religious life, want to make dealing with God, both individual and community, as well as liturgical and sacramental rites, take a back seat, in order to give a a certain preference to other horizontal objectives that, although good in themselves and worthy of being sought, are nevertheless always subordinate to the primary end, that is, the spiritual, which must inspire all the life and work of the Christian and, in particular, , of the religious.

3. Another aspect that seems to me to constitute an essential part of the Franciscan charism is total and generous fidelity to the Church. It is about integrating lovingly and firmly not into an imaginary Church, which each one could conceive and structure in his own way, but into the Catholic Church, as it is, that is, as Christ wanted it and instituted it with its objectives, its laws, its means of salvation and its indispensable structures. What is expected of the spiritual sons of Saint Francis today is that they know how to enliven this one true Church of Christ from within, that they strengthen and enrich it with their full fidelity, with their absolute obedience: in a word, with all those ascetic virtues that are typical of the Franciscan tradition.

Always keep before your eyes the great problems that occupy and concern the Church today: priestly and religious vocations, the missions, the promotion of the humble, the poor and the weak, the defense of justice and peace; in other words: the announcement of the "good news" to all men of good will. Make your specific contribution to the achievement of these great goals. Like your seraphic Father, you also shine more and more in ardent love for "holy mother Church" (2 R 12,4; TestS). By doing so, you will reproduce in yourself his "dear paternal image", you will conform your life to his, and you will be true servants of the People of God, capable of lighting everywhere the lamp of hope, trust and optimism, which has its spring in the Lord himself.

The Jubilee Year of the Redemption, which is underway, brings to mind the specific message of forgiveness and reconciliation that was entrusted to the sons of Saint Francis with the Indulgence of the Porziuncola. This is a message of grace and mercy of which you yourselves are the first beneficiaries. Consider, therefore, as a treasure, especially in this Jubilee, the great forgiveness that Francis begged from Christ through the intercession of the Queen of Angels. In the spirit of the Holy Year, renew in yourselves the humble and joyful invocation of God's reconciling grace, and have an ever clearer awareness of your debt to Him, who has offered you "once for all" (Heb. 9,12), and continually reiterates to you, with unchanging goodness, a forgiveness to which no one would be entitled, and which fills you with the joy of living your consecrated life in depth. May this Indulgence also be one of the spiritual fruits of your General Chapter.

4. May the examples of the great saint of Assisi and all the saints of the Franciscan tradition who honored the Church assist you in the conclusion of your work. May the luminous and intrepid figure of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a martyr of charity and an exemplary model of Franciscan life for our time, who I myself had the joy of including in the heavenly militia of saints, be of encouragement to you, in particular. and whose "City of the Immaculate" I was able to joyfully see again on my recent apostolic pilgrimage to Poland. Following in her footsteps, may the Most Holy Immaculate Virgin, the Queen of the Franciscan Order, always shine before your eyes and prepare you for an ever more generous dedication to the new and multiple apostolic activities that await you.

May my continual remembrance in prayer for the success of your religious works, above all of the most committed ones that you carry out in Lebanon, in Turkey, in China and in the mission territories, serve as encouragement.

On all of you, those present here, and on all the members of your Order descend now, as a pledge of abundant heavenly graces, my apostolic blessing.

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