In today’s “dark situations”, between “marriages in crisis, tempted young people, forgotten old people, suffering children”, while the family is attacked and “ideological colonizations” try to “savagely plunder” one’s own human values, it is necessary to become in bearers of hope. Pope Francis received the fathers of the Schönstatt community, a Catholic Marian movement born in Germany in 1914, on the occasion of the General Chapter, and asked them to give a response to the struggles and anxieties of the people.
Greetings to the new Superior General
Before the speech, entirely in Spanish, the Pope greeted the new superior general, Father Alexandre Awi Mello, elected on August 21. For five years the Brazilian religious was Secretary of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life. A service for which Francis expressed his gratitude: “He was my secretary in Aparecida, then my guide in Rio de Janeiro and then my secretary here. Thank you for your collaboration during these years in communion with the Successor of Peter, for the benefit of all the Church. I wish him a fruitful ministry in this new responsibility that has been entrusted to him”.
bearers of hope
A thank you, Pope Francis, is also addressed to the entire community:
“You, dear brothers, render a beautiful service to the Church and to the world, especially by accompanying families in the various events and vicissitudes that they go through, announcing to all its members the beauty of the ‘Covenant of Love’ that the Lord has established with his people. Today there are many marriages in crisis, tempted young people, forgotten old people, suffering children. You are bearers of a message of hope in these dark situations that each stage of life goes through”
“This -added the Pope, distancing himself from the written text- goes a little hand in hand with this plundering of human values, a plundering that is savagely carried out by ideological colonizations of all kinds”.
Distances and ideologies
Yes, Francis says, “the world asks us more and more to give answers to the questions and anxieties of the men and women of our time.” And one of the most serious concerns is about the family and its nature:
“We often see that the nature of the family is attacked by various ideologies, which shake the foundations that sustain the personality of the human being and, in general, of the entire society. In addition, within families, on many occasions there is a distance of understanding between the elderly and the young”.
pact between generations
The Pontiff recalled his cycle of catechesis in the general audience on Wednesdays to reiterate that “the alliance between the generations, that is, between the oldest and the youngest, is what can save humanity, because in this way the personal and family identity. In the family “not only a genetic heritage or a surname is inherited, but also and above all the wisdom of what it means to be human, according to God’s plan.”
Therefore, the mystery of our redemption is also intimately linked to the experience of love in families. And let us not forget that, ultimately, faith is always transmitted in “dialect” through families, the elderly, grandparents.
The example of the Virgin
The model is the Holy Family, and especially the Virgin Mary, “who cares for all her sons and daughters, especially the poorest in body and spirit, with tender and committed love.” The members of Schönstatt venerate the Virgin with “great love” under the title “Mother Thrice Admirable”. “She is a fundamental model for all of us, who drives us to build bridges based on fraternal charity and the communion of goods with those most in need,” Francis stressed.
open new paths
He concluded by encouraging “to continue forward in their apostolates, always renewing themselves with the grace of the Holy Spirit and showing courage to open new paths at the service of families, to make shine the beauty of the Alliance established between God and man through the spirituality and the living of Christian values”.
The family attacked, ideologies of various kinds plunder the values