Pope to Catholic Charismatic Renewal: Tell Them I Love Them Very Much
Archbishop Rino Fisichella Relays Pontiffs Message to Participants at Rimini Meeting
Rome, (Zenit.org)
Rocio Lancho
Garcia
On Saturday, Archbishop Rino
Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New
Evangelization, celebrated the Eucharist that ended the second day of the
Rimini Fair of the 36th National Assembly of Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
After the sign of the cross, Archbishop Fisichella gave an unexpected message,
which was received with joy by the 15,000 present: an affectionate greeting
from Pope Francis.
“Before beginning this celebration,
I bring you a greeting. Before I left this morning, I was with Pope Francis,
and I told him: “Holy Father, I have to leave soon. I’m going to Rimini where
there are thousands upon thousands of faithful of the Charismatic Renewal: men,
women and young people.” With a great smile, the Pope said: “Tell them that I
love them very much!” Upon leaving the Holy Father, Archbishop Fisichella
recounted, the Holy Father added: “Look, tell them that I love them very much
because I was responsible for Charismatic Renewal in Argentina, and that’s why
I love them very much.”
During the homily,
ArchbishopFisichella addressed the faithful with affectionate words, thanking
them for the great work of the New Evangelization “which you have been carrying
out for some time” but which now, “with the National Plan for the New
Evangelization which has been given to you, calls for the commitment of all of
you and which, from this moment, becomes the compass with which to work and act
in the heart of the Church.”
In a brief and very concrete homily,
the president of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization spoke
primarily of the endeavor of the New Evangelization and of Jesus as the
Teacher, who accompanies us and does not abandon us in a world in which often
the Christian must go against the current.
He continued adding that Jesus is
the Way, the Truth and the Life, the “revelation” that indicates the path that
God has designed for us. “Thomas’ question is ours: Lord, you are the way, but
how can we know it?” he asked.
“The secret of our existence, the
full realization of happiness, lies in the degree that we know God’s plan for
us and that we put it into practice. However, what the heart understands does
not always finds its full and concrete realization.”
This “realization” can only come
about in Christ, who never leaves us alone, he added. “The journey enables us
to know who we are, where we are going, and point out the end. The New
Evangelization calls us to make our own the certainty of faith, to found
our life on Jesus.” Therefore, our witness cannot lack the proclamation of
hope, of the resurrection which opposes the tendency to the culture of death,
in which the lack of God robs us of prospects and orientation to the future.
“We must become pilgrims: He, Jesus, is the end. And in this end we must find
ourselves.”
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