On Saturday, January 15, Pope Francis received in audience, in the Clementine Hall, the participants in the General Chapter of the Congregation of Clerics Regular, the Theatines.
The Pope highlighted that a “community that preserves the small details of love, where the members take care of one another and constitute an open and evangelizing space, that is the place of the Risen One who sanctifies according to the Father’s plan.”
Here is a translation of the Pope’s address to those present at the meeting.
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The Holy Father’s Address
Dear Brothers, welcome!
I welcome you on the occasion of your 164th General Chapter. How much progress there is behind this 164th chapter how far you have traveled with God’s providence! And how great, then, your gratitude must be!
I thank the Superior General for his words and I wish him a good continuation of the service in which he was confirmed.
The subject that guides your work these days, the word that stands out is mission: “Theatines for the mission . . . “ I appreciate this choice, in attunement with the fundamental orientation of the Church, in which the Risen Lord imprinted the dynamism of “going forth” for evangelization, which involves every Christian and every community (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 20). The mission also inspired the writing of the new document for the Roman Curia. For you, in particular, this dynamism is combined with the charism of Saint Cajetan Thiene and of the Co-Founders, which we can summarize as an apostolic priestly fraternity, firmly rooted in the spiritual life and concrete charity with the needy.
In Saint Cajetan’s life – as in that of many other Saints – our attention is caught in seeing how at a certain point a “qualitative leap” occurs that, in biblical terms, we would rather call a “vocation within the vocation,” or a “second conversion.” It’s about passing from an already good and esteemed life to a holy life, full of that “more” that comes from the Holy Spirit. This qualitative leap is what makes, not only personal life grow of that man or woman, but also the life of the Church. This is, what in a certain sense is the “reform,” purifying and heightening her evangelical beauty.
We can and must always refer to this testimony, to this “living Gospel” to advance on our personal and communitarian path, knowing very well that “it’s not possible for a Christian to think of his mission on earth without conceiving it as a path of holiness” (Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exultate, 19). Saint Cajetan Thiene also shows us that “each Saint is a mission.” Each man or woman Saint is “a project of the Father to reflect and embody, in a specific moment of history, an aspect of the Gospel” (Ibid.).
And what is asked of us is not so much to imitate in the literal sense — in reality, the one we all must imitate is Jesus Christ — but to assume of that Saint the “method”, so to speak, the spiritual dynamism with which he lived the Gospel, to try to translate it in our current context. This is also what you proposed to yourselves in the general objective of your Chapter. I quote: “To update the Theatine charism, to respond from our identity to the present challenges.”
And the first specific objective points to identity. Needless to say, I have nothing to teach you on this. I would only like to stress an essential aspect of Saint Cajetan’s witness: the reform must begin by oneself. When he came to Rome to work in the Papal Curia, he became aware of the lamentable generalized spiritual and moral degradation. It is worldliness, the root is always there, worldliness that causes spiritual and moral degradation. And while he exercised his office, he frequented the Divine Love Oratory, cultivating prayer and spiritual formation. And then he went to a hospital to assist the sick. This is the way: to begin by oneself to live the Gospel with greater depth and coherence. All the Saints show us this way. They are the true reformers of the Church, or, rather, it’s the Holy Spirit who forms and reforms the Church, and He does so through the Word of God and through the Saints, that put the Word into practice in their lives. It always begins by you, yourself.
The second specific objective is communion. Here too, looking at Saint Cajetan, we see that the Spirit didn’t push him to go alone, to travel an individual path. No. He called him to form a Community of Clerics Regular, to live the Gospel according to the way of life of the Apostles. In the Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate – which I recommend you read again, it will always do you good! It does me good to read it because one forgets what one wrote for others – I recalled some “holy communities” that “lived the Gospel heroically” (n. 141). And to them, we recently can add that of your Co-Founders. However, usually in Religious Families and Communities, the Christian life is made up of many daily gestures. “The community that preserves the small details of love, where the members take care of one another and are an open and evangelizing space, that is the place of the presence of the Risen One that sanctifies it according to the Father’s plan” (Ibid., 145). There is a phrase there, which I want to emphasize: All the members take care of one another. Brothers, the greatest plague in a Religious Congregation, in a Religious Community, is when bothers don’t take care of each other, what’s more, it’s when the chatter starts. Please, discard all forms of chatting. Be consecrated men, men of the Gospel, but men. If you have something against another, have the courage to say it to his face, say things to his face, or be quiet. Or that other criterion, say it to those that can remedy it, that is, to the Superiors. But don’t form small groups, because this is the spirituality of “woodworm,” which makes the strength of a Religious community fall – please, no gossip.
And, finally, the third objective that you propose for yourselves is in fact the mission. “Discern the signs of the times to proclaim and live the Kingdom of God among men.” According to the foundational charism, your mission is not ad Gentes. Saint Cajetan evangelized Rome, Venice, Naples and he did so above all through the witness of his life and works of mercy, practicing the great “protocol” that Jesus left us with the parable of the Last Judgment, Matthew
25: (vv. 31-46). He and his companions served and nourished that Church, which is a “field hospital” that is also needed today. I encourage you to follow in his footsteps, with docility to the Spirit, without rigid schemes – beware of rigidity, because rigidity is a perversion that comes in fact from clericalism. It’s another bad thing and, under all rigidity, there is rot – always – but be firm in essential things: prayer, Adoration, common life, fraternal charity, poverty, and service to the poor. All this with an apostolic heart, with good and evangelical restlessness to seek above all the Kingdom of God.
Dear brothers, as you know, among cities also evangelized by Saint Cajetan is Buenos Aires. The feast of Saint Cajetan, on August 7, had great popular participation there. The people venerate him and pray to him as “Patron of Bread and Work.” I entrust your path to his intercession and that of Our Lady. I bless you, all your brothers, and your commitment to communion and mission, from my heart. And, please, don’t forget to pray for me. Thank you!
I asked that a brief study be brought here made recently by an Apostolic Nuncio on gossip. It occurred to me after this address. I think it would be good for all to take a free copy home!
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
