During the meeting with the participants of the Fifth World Congress of the Oblate Benedictines, the Pope once again urges them not to withdraw into individualism and indifference towards those in need and not to fall into gossip that “dirts” others.
Tiziana Campisi – Vatican City
It is a new thinking on hospitality that Pope Francis is developing, renewing the call to respect those who seek hospitality and to give preference to the poor. The Supreme Pontiff expresses his thoughts in letter To the participants in the Fifth World Congress of the Benedictine Oblates, which was received in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace.
Sometimes it seems that our society is slowly suffocating in the vaults of selfishness, individualism, and indifference.
“The temptation today is to close in on oneself,” the Pope adds, “and this is also done through gossip, polluting others, judging others, and withdrawing into oneself.” Instead, Francis says, “Language is for glorifying God, not for chatting with others.”
The Pope gives his speech
A heart filled with love
The Pope reminds the Benedictine Oblates that Saint Benedict, in the introduction to his rule, exhorted them to have “a heart enlarged by the ineffable dominion of love,” and notes that it is precisely this “enlarged heart” that characterizes the Benedictine spirit and is “the enlarged heart.” The mystery of the great work of evangelization” carried out by the order born with Saint Nursia. Francis then reflects on three aspects that arise from expansion of the heart: the search for God, passion for the Gospel, and hospitality.
Radiate the gospel into everyday life
If the constant search for God is what characterizes the Benedictine life first and foremost – with the aim of determining the will of the Creator in His Word, “in contemplation of creation”, in “everyday events” and “in living action as prayer” – then passion for the Gospel is the diligence that It stems from him. Hence Francis’s call to Benedictine oblates is to transform the contexts of daily life, “working like leaven in the dough, efficiently and responsibly, and at the same time with meekness and mercy,” such as medieval monasticism, which “with his model of evangelical life grounded inPrayer and workled to the “peaceful conversion” and “integration of many populations.” The goal is to bring the Gospel into daily life.
In a globalized but fragmented, hasty world devoted to consumerism, in contexts where family and social roots sometimes seem almost to dissolve, there is no need for finger-pointing Christians, but for ardent witnesses who spread the Gospel “in life by life.” “And the temptation is always this: from Christian witnesses to Christian accusers. There is only one accuser: Satan. Let us not play the role of Satan, let us play the role of Jesus, the role of Jesus’ school, the role of the Beatitudes.
Group photo with Benedictine oblates
Welcome recommended by San Benedetto
Finally, good hospitality. The Pope stresses the instructions dictated by Saint Benedict in this regard: kindness to the guest, participating in times of prayer, and sharing what he has. Benedict
As oblates, your great monastery is the world, the city, the workplace, and there you are called to be an example of hospitality by respecting those who knock on your door and with compassion for the poor.
In the face of all this, Francis’s call to progressives is to continue expanding their hearts, surrendering them every day to God’s love, without ceasing to “seek it, and bear witness to it with passion and passion.” To receive it among the poorest people.
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