"Pope to Orionines: Remain
with Jesus, and serve the poor"
The newly elected General Council held an audience with His Holiness Pope Francis last May 27 at 12 pm in the Vatican City. Here is the report of Vatican Radio.
PopeFrancis on Friday greeted members of the Congregation of Don Orione, the Sons
of Divine Providence, on the occasion of their 14th General Chapter.
The
Congregation takes its inspiration from its founder, St Luigi Orione, whose
motto was: “Do good to all; harm no one.” St Luigi Orione is remembered for his
commitment to social justice and the service of those in need, a service guided
and inspired by the teachings of the Catholic Church.
In
his address to the General Chapter, Pope Francis said, “The whole Church is
called to journey with Jesus along the paths of the world, to encounter the
humanity of today, which needs, as Don Orione wrote, ‘the bread of the body,
and the divine balm of the Faith’.”
To
put these words into practice today, the Pope said, the members of the
Congregation must keep in mind their identity as “servants of Christ and of the
poor.”
“You
were called and consecrated by God,” he said, “to remain with Jesus and to
serve Him in the poor and in those excluded from society." He called them
to vigilance, that their faith “might not become an ideology,” or their charity
a mere “philanthropy.”
Pope
Francis recalled that, even during the lifetime of Don Orione, the Orionine
Fathers were known as “running priests” because they “seemed to be always on
the go, in the midst of the people, with the rapid pace of those who care.”
He
exhorted them, “with Don Orione, to to not remain enclosed within your
particular environment, but to ‘go out’.”
At the same time, it
is important to never “lose sight of the Church” or of their own religious
community. Rather, he said, “your heart must be there in your ‘cenaculum’, but
then needs to go out to bring the mercy of God to all, without distinction.”
Here a video of the audience.
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