A precious gift to the People of God

My dear brothers and sisters, may this message find you well.

As all of you know by now, we are once again experiencing a time of particular tension in our beautiful country South Sudan; let us not be caught by negative feeling, let us raise up our spirit and once again let us shake the heavens with our prayers.

As we all agreed during the General Assembly I simply remind you and strongly recommend that in each and all our communities prayer for peace and reconciliation and nonviolent solutions shall be celebrated every month. Let’s not pass a single day in which we do not intercede for our brothers and sisters of South Sudan “for through you we beat down our foes, in your name we trampled our aggressors. For it was not in my bow I trusted nor yet was I saved by my sword: it was you who saved us […] All day long our boast was in God and we praised your name without ceasing” (psalm 44).

As religious we are called to “stay with him” and to be sent into the world.

Let us contemplate God to better and more deeply understand this country; let us pray for our enemies, and for the ones who persecute us and our brothers and sisters.

Let us begin this love in our own communities because even if a small match cannot illumine a whole forest, yet it can bright the countenance of our brother and sister living with us.

We all share the responsibility of being at the heart of the Church:

“In effect, the consecrated life is at the very heart of the Church as a decisive element for her mission, since it "manifests the inner nature of the Christian calling" and the striving of the whole Church as Bride towards union with her one Spouse. […] the consecrated life has not only proved a help and support for the Church in the past, but is also a precious and necessary gift for the present and future of the People of God, since it is an intimate part of her life, her holiness and her mission. (Vita Consecrata n°3)

This is the trust that God has on each and all of us. Let us not be trapped into worldly allures; we are rooted into our own orders, congregations or institutions in virtue of our profession and rule of life each one of us has been called to follow. God wants our happiness and our well-being and there is nothing in this world able to stop this desire of God.

Love and faithfulness meet together;

righteousness and peace kiss each other.

Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,

and righteousness looks down from heaven.

The Lord will indeed give what is good,

and our land will yield its harvest.

Righteousness goes before him

and prepares the way for his steps

Fr. Federico