To the
BECOME AN OCCASION FOR HUMAN ADVANCEMENT
Beloved!
1.I am
deeply happy to meet with you who have come to
Above all I address my greeting to
your Bishop, Monsignor Filippo Franceschi,
as well as to the Founder of your organization, Prof. Francesco Canova, and to the members of the Administrative and
Directive Council.
I greet the students who are
preparing for their mission and all the doctors who are already working in
missionary areas and those who have completed their service and have returned.
Finally, I greet all your relatives
here present with you.
2.Still
fresh in my mind is the memory of the day when, just a year ago, I spoke in
your city on the occasion of the seven hundred fiftieth anniversary of the
death of St. Anthony. The warm welcome of the people, the deep fervour of the celebrations, the
fresh enthusiasm of the youth left a deep impression on my heart which will not
fade.
During the pastoral visit of mine I
wanted to meet first with a group of the sick to emphasize, with that gesture,
how the practice of charity is closely linked to the evangelical commitment of
the Christian community.
Serving Christ in others
3.It was
precisely the Christian will to serve Christ in the brethren, the needy, the
sick, which in 1950 prompted the beginning of your organization's activity.
The love of Christ, your statutes
recall, is the force which impelled you to make the decision to dedicate part
of your lives "to the service of needy populations in developing
countries, thus making your personal and sincere contribution to 'the cause of
man's liberation and growth'" (Stat. Art. 1).
Always marked by charity
4.Reviewing the activity which you carry out
and the considerable number of persons whom, in the medical, paramedical and
technical fields, you have prepared and sent out during these years to
The apostolate which you carry out
by dedicating yourselves with Christian intent and careful preparation to the
service of others, especially if they are poor and suffering, is one of the
bravest testimonies today's Church renders its Lord.
The Council document which the
Fathers addressed to the Christian laity emphasized how important and
irreplaceable is your active presence and your convinced participation in the
spread of Jesus Christ's message.
In fact, this is what we read in
that Decree: "The greatest commandment in the law is to love God with
one's whole heart and one's neighbour as
oneself". Christ made this commandment of love of one's neighbour his own and enriched it with a new meaning. For he wanted to identify himself with his brethren as the object
of this love when he said, "As often as you did it for one of my least
brothers, you did it for me" (cf. Mt 25:40). Taking on human
nature, he bound the whole human race to himself as a family through
supernatural solidarity and established charity as the mark of his disciples,
saying "This is how all will know you for my disciples: your love for one
another".
Therefore, may your action always be marked by
charity, whose works are a duty and an inalienable right of every Christian. Aware as you are of the bond which links all men
in a sole family, and together with the duty which justice imposes so that not
only the effects of evil but also the causes may be eliminated, work so that
those who receive your help may little by little be freed from their dependence
on others and may become self-sufficient.
5.Towards that end, you will solicit in every
way the active participation and full corresponsibility
of the local populations, not by imposing examples of development imported from
outside, but by fostering the manifestation of and the progressive evolution
towards the maturing of every authentic value of the indigenous cultures.
Indeed, your presence insomuch as it is made up of foreigners who have come to
a country to give disinterested and effective help, assumes a temporary and
supplementary, even if very useful, form; that is, your presence must
constantly appear as being aimed at its own passing thanks to the establishment
in loco of a state of
self-sufficiency.
Inspired therefore by those ideals of moral
justice in the national and international fields which constitute the
presupposition for this peace you will not fail to offer your collaboration in
every valid initiative of the local authorities, both coordinating the work of
the missionary hospitals with the programmes
elaborated by the national health systems, and by intervening, as agreed, in
the public structures operating in the individual countries.
There is not one who does not see, beloved
brothers and sisters, how this total "involvement" in the social
reality of the communities in which we will get assumes that you have those
gifts of patience, humility and detachment from personal points of view that
are rooted in your own cultural origin, unreserved readiness to give
yourselves, the capacity to read daily events in the penetrating light of the
faith. And how could you live constantly in a similar spirit of service and of
authentic collaboration without that profound interior drive which comes from
Communion with Christ, encountered in participation in the Eucharist, in
meditation on Sacred Scriptures, and in personal prayer? I therefore exhort
you, beloved, to this commitment to the interior life in the certainty that in
Christ each of you will be able to find light during bewilderment, support
during toil, comfort during moments of trial,
misunderstanding and failure. May Christ be the sincere friend and trusted
companion to each of you along the paths of the world.
Renewed commitment
May the pilgrimage which has brought
you here during this Holy Year of the Redemption therefore constitute for all
of you a moment of reflection in the light of faith, and of inspiration to your
renewed commitment to give through your freely assumed task of human
advancement and of service in developing countries, a clear witness of
solidarity and practical implementation of the values of the Gospel.
May my Blessing accompany you.