CONTINUA A LEGGERE QUI.

SPEECH OF GREETING TO HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

by the Most Reverend  Fr. Leocir PESSINI, the Superior General of the Camillians, on the occasion of the audience granted to the members of the Camillian Charismatic Family

Monday 18 March 2019

Dear Pope Francis,

We are especially moved and happy because of the precious opportunity that you have granted to us to be able to meet your person, to listen to your words, and to receive your apostolic blessing.

Who are we? We represent the consecrated men and women of the various Orders and Institutes whose inspiration is St. Camillus de Lellis – his charism and his spirituality – that are present in today’s world, in over sixty countries in the five continents of the world.

We are Camillian men religious; women religious of the Daughters of St. Camillus: women Ministers of the Sick of St. Camillus; women religious of the Handmaidens of the Incarnation; members of the secular institute of the women Missionaries of the Sick ‘Christ our Hope’; members of the Institute of the Kamillianische Schwestern (Austria); members of the Institute of Stella Maris (Brazil); as well as representatives of the International Lay Camillian Family.

We have been encouraged and we are inspired by the message that you gave to us for the Year of Consecrated Life (2015) and for the great Jubilee of Mercy (2015-2016): we have been led by ‘gentle persuasion’ to be more united and to look with ever greater creativity for new pathways of cooperation and spiritual and ministerial growth. This belief of yours and ours is the founding reason from which this meeting of ours, which we have just celebrated in Rome, sprang.

This meeting, which has just ended, has been a historic event on our charismatic itinerary searching for ecclesial pathways that will breathe and be animated by a renewed spirit of unity and cooperation.

We have reflected on and shared our experiences starting with the subject ‘Which Camillian Prophecy Today? Between the Past, the Present and the Future. Prophecy between the Samaritan Woman and the Samaritan’.

      Through this ‘being together’ we have sought to value certain objectives: our ongoing formation, the creation of a providential opportunity to know each other, the celebration of our faith, and the study of concrete projects to journey, work and support each other together.

This meeting of ours also represents an important stage in the preparations for the next General Chapters of our Institutes which are planned for the year 2020. We are animated by a passion for an effective evangelisation of the world of health through care for sick people in order to continue to be witnesses to the concern and mercy of God, above all in the fringes of the world, and to continue to support and make better the Samaritan healing of those who wounded, frail and tired. We wish to continue to live the charismatic approach of Saint Camillus de Lellis according to an evangelical inspiration that we can nurture and implement in the Church and with the Church.

On behalf of all our men and women religious I thank the Lord for the special gift of being able to meet you; I thank Your Holiness for your attention: we will conserve in our memories with affection and care our memory of this day!

We assure you of our affection, our esteem and our fraternal prayer.

While listening to your words, we ask for your paternal blessing.

Thank you!