Pope
to religious: creative fidelity to tradition
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis received the participants in the
plenary assembly of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life on Thursday in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic
Palace in the Vatican. From the 25th to the 29th of November, the participants in the plenary session are
gathered to reflect on the image of new wine in new wineskins, taken from the
Gospel according to St. Mark (2:22), with a focus on fostering creative
fidelity to their specific callings and to their particular charisms within the
broad vocation to consecrated life.
In remarks prepared
for the occasion, Pope Francis said, “In the demanding task that brings you
together – that of assessing the new wine and testing the quality of the skins
which must contain it – may you be guided by the criteria of originality in
evangelical choices, charismatic faithfulness, the primacy of service,
attention to the smallest and most fragile, respect for the dignity of each person.”
The plenary session is
also taking place with a view toward the Year for Consecrated Life, which
officially opens this coming Sunday, Nov. 30th, with the first
Sunday of Advent and the beginning of the new liturgical year. “We must not be
afraid to leave the ‘old wineskins’, that is, to renew those habits and
structures which, in the life of the Church and therefore also in the
consecrated life, we recognize as no longer responsive to what God asks of us
today in order to further His Kingdom in the world,” said Pope Francis,
“structures that give us false protection and put a drag on the dynamism of
charity; habits that distance us from the flock to which we are sent and
prevent us from listening to the cry of those who await the Good News of Jesus
Christ.”
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