Pope Francis: Without Jesus we are not standing

This Monday, August 26, at the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, Pope Francis received the participants of the XVIII General Chapter of the Congregation of the Oblates of Saint Joseph, with whom he shared 3 “dimensions of Saint Joseph” essential for their path.

At the beginning of his speech, the Holy Father remembered the founder of the Congregation, Saint Joseph Marello, born in Turin, a city in the Italian region of Piedmont. Pope Francis recalled that his origins are also from that region, specifically from the city of Asti.

Later, he explained 3 dimensions of Saint Joseph, “also important for your religious life and for the service you provide in the Church”:

The gathering

First of all, Pope Francis stressed the importance of knowing how to “root your life of faith and your religious consecration in a daily ‘being’ with Jesus.”

“Let us not deceive ourselves: without Him we are not standing, none of us: each of us has our frailties and without the Lord to sustain us we would not be standing.”

For this reason, he encouraged them to always cultivate an intense life of prayer, through participation in the Sacraments, listening to and meditating on the Word of God, and Eucharistic Adoration, both personal and communal.”

According to the Pontiff, this is how Saint Joseph responded to the immense gift of having in his home “the Son of God himself made man: being with Him, listening to Him, speaking to Him and sharing life with Him every day. Let us remember: without Jesus we are not standing! “He exclaimed.

He also stressed that this closeness to Jesus is necessary especially for the apostolate with young people: “Young people do not need us: they need God! And the more we live in his presence, the more capable we will be of helping them meet Him, without unnecessary protagonism and having only their salvation and his full happiness in our hearts.

Faced with a world where a life that “leaves one empty inside” prevails, Pope Francis urged them to make “your hearts, your communities, your religious houses, places where you can feel and share the warmth of familiarity.” with God and between brothers and sisters.”

Fatherhood

Secondly, he pointed out the dimension of fatherhood, and recalled the words that Saint Joseph of Marello wrote to Father Esteban Delaude: “Poor youth, too abandoned and neglected, poor growing generation too left at the mercy of yourself!” .

The heart of a father is felt here, Pope Francis explained, “who is moved by the beauty of his children humiliated by the indifference and disinterest of those who should, on the contrary, help them to give the best of themselves.”

“And in the same letter he stops to consider how unfair and sterile is the attitude of those who then limit themselves to criticizing these abandoned and disoriented youth.”

According to the Pontiff, the founder of the Congregation “perceives in young people a great potential for good, which only hopes to flourish and bear fruit if it is sustained and accompanied by wise, patient and generous guides.”

For this reason, he invited them to be attentive to the integral good of young people, “specifically present with them and their families, experts in the maieutic art of good trainers, wisely respectful of the times and possibilities of each one.”

Attention to the last

Finally, Pope Francis highlighted that “one of the things that draws the attention of the Holy Husband of Mary is the generous faith with which he welcomed into his home and into his life a God who, against all expectations, appeared at her door in the son of a fragile girl, without resorting to recrimination.”

In this sense, he highlighted that Joseph knew how to recognize “the real presence of God in his poverty and made it his own, even more, he united it with his own.”

In this way, he explained that welcoming the least is not paternalistically lowering oneself to their “supposed inferiority,” but rather “sharing our own poverty with them.”

“This is what God teaches us by making himself poor; This is what Saint Joseph Marello taught us, reserving a very special place in his pastor’s heart for the most problematic children, for the ‘poor young people’, as he liked to say, and this is what the Lord calls us to do today. ”, concluded the Holy Father.