05231951 Pius XII Speech General Chapter OFM

 

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Address of SS Pius XII to the participants in the General Chapter of the Friars Minor

May 23, 1951

 After having held a general meeting of your religious community in Assisi, in which you, Franciscan religious, have elected your Superior General, you piously come to offer us a filial greeting. Joy produces your gift to us. We thank God that among the weight of our apostolic office he allows us to enjoy your sight and speak to such valorous soldiers of the peaceful army of Jesus Christ.

First of all, we congratulate our beloved son Agustín Sépinski, who has been elected by the coincidence of your votes to preside over your entire religious family, and, while we give a vote of thanks to his predecessor, we invoke upon him the generous light and strength of the Holy Spirit so that you can carry out your arduous role with solicitude and prudence.

And now you ask us for some exhortations and vows that will serve as incitement and take advantage of you to embark on the path of virtue with more courage. What topic will we discuss? Where are we going to start? You have come from the city of Assisi carrying with you more alive the image and love of your founding father. Because what helps you is with you.

The Patriarch of Assisi and Franciscan charity

The Patriarch of Assisi, a most fervent lover of the Gospel, proclamation of the great King, image of Christ, who shines with extraordinary splendor, stands out in such a way that he often brings to his love even those who are alien to the Catholic Church. You, his followers and children, must also advance others in this regard. But it is convenient that you are very far from love manifesting itself in words and languishing in deeds. If you really love him, follow his advice, insist on his footsteps, let yourself be carried away by the breath of his enormous spirit.

The most excellent form of virtue that shone in him in a singular way was charity, seraphic charity, carried away by which he touched the earth with the lightest foot like birds and yearned with all his soul for the things of heaven. Due to the demand of this outstanding charity, he cultivated evangelical poverty in such a way, remedy for all vices, that he won the palm in his fight. Companions as they are of evangelical poverty, love, penance, the determined will to give oneself totally to God and the Church, the innocence of life, the vigilant care to help and build up their neighbors religiously flourished admirably in their customs, above all to the poor and the most miserable. Direct your gaze towards this most brilliant star and imitate the signs of his paternal virtue. Adorn yourselves more and more with charity towards God and towards your brothers. Is it possible to praise God and with that same mouth wound fraternal charity, even in light matters? Charity is more an excuse than it accuses, and if it sometimes becomes angry, it does so, when it is sincere and true, to uproot the bitter roots of dissension, to feed harmony, and to bend the stiff neck to the yoke of obedience.

In this matter we propose a topic that you should ponder and meditate on. The Franciscan Institute, a fertile tree, produced, for various reasons that History remembers, many shoots. Let us leave to the judgment of History itself the dissensions and discrepancies that existed between them in the past. Wouldn't it be nice and desirable that each of the Franciscan families, although they remain independent, come together in a friendly federation to resolve all matters of capital importance, with the cooperation of everyone's opinion?

The spirit of poverty

Secondly, poverty is so necessary, so consistent with the law of the Gospel, that every Christian, if at least in the affection of his mind he does not venerate it and does not stop his desire for earthly goods, looks bad for his eternal health. That is why it is convenient that there be in the Church those who excel in this virtue to build and warn others in it. This is you, if you do not deviate from your primitive norm. Shine, then, a decent poverty in your houses and in your things and, treating earthly things with a certain modesty, do not enjoy them, but use them with temperance, according to that: One lives well with little things (Odes of Horace, book II , 16, 13).

Poor in clothing and food, fight to be rich in riches - which well deserve the name - that God's grace, virtues and science engender, and spread such riches among your neighbors with a prodigal hand.

Exercise yourselves in spiritual immolation so that, having overcome what is harmful and illegal, you inhibit and reject even some things that are legal; excel in the modesty of face and language and in the integrity of the lily of your purity; that all those who come close to you can learn from your mouth and from your example what is good, what is chaste, what is honorable, what is holy.

Approach mainly the weak

You already know, dearly beloved, that among all the evils that afflict the present age, the one that harms the weakest should be considered the worst, and that some of these, defeated by the insidiousness of bad doctrines, flee from the fold of Christ. Moved by the instinct of fraternal benevolence, draw near mainly to these, help them with all kinds of goods, announce to them the word of God with assiduity, that word of salvation and hope that must be nourished by meditation on the Holy Scriptures, give fervor to the prayers, sustain yourselves in the austerity of life. If you do so, in addition to accumulating a huge sum of merits, you will oppose the perversion of the century and you will cooperate to make it better from now on. With these vows and with the outpouring of Our fatherly love, We bless all of you who are present and all your brothers, especially those who in certain regions suffer harsh circumstances for Christ, those undefeated and very strong soldiers, worthy of immortal praise; equally to your students, your companies and your jobs. May the august and venerable Trinity, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Francis, protect your religious community and increase in it peace, joy and the brightness of virtues, each day greater.

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