To the Fathers of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament
gathered for their 36th General Chapter
Dear brothers, it is with particular joy that I address you who are gathered for the 36th General Chapter. This is a very significant moment for your religious family, a powerful time of dialogue between you and listening to the Holy Spirit which will enable you to evaluate the life and mission of your Congregation in relation to the Church’s movement, the development of the society in which you live and the present challenges of Consecrated Life. In light of the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops that the Universal Church has lived during these days, I invite you also to live in a synodal manner which entails mutual listening and sincere dialogue. I would also like to recall the memory of Father José Ramón Aristi, SSS, with whom I had the opportunity to celebrate the mercy of God when I was Archbishop of Buenos Aires. May he accompany you on your journey in celebrating this Chapter.
Saint Peter-Julian Eymard, your founder, is a man who loved Jesus with passion and the Church unconditionally. His work, an evangelical witness of fraternity and communion, spread across the five continents, continuing the path he had traced. In the dynamic of renewal proposed by the Second Vatican Council, he received the title of Eminent Apostle of the Eucharist and continues to be a contemporary and prophetic model for the entire Church, and in particular for its sons and daughters who desire to witness to the Gospel of the Eucharist. To do this, he points to three fundamental objectives: to assure an evangelical witness; to promote eucharistic spirituality; to strengthen your eucharistic mission.
The Church is actually undergoing, along with the whole world, a epoch of great transformations. It needs men and women who carry in their hearts the same love for the Eucharist as that which enlivened the young
Peter-Julian Eymard, a love that abides in the ecclesial community gathered around the Eucharist, sacrament of the flesh of Jesus given to bring life to the world. He who feeds on this food abides in Jesus and lives through Him. To assimilate Jesus means to be in Him, to become a son in the Son. “From Sunday to Sunday, the word of the Risen Lord illuminates our existence, enabling us to fulfil the end for which it was sent. From Sunday to Sunday, communion in the Body and Blood of Christ enables our lives to become a sacrifice acceptable to the Father, in the fraternal communion of sharing, of welcoming, of service” (Desiderio Desideravi, n. 65).
May the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, the eucharistic woman, who has always been united to Jesus the bread of life, unceasingly assist you to rediscover the beauty of the Eucharist, to nourish yourself with faith, to live in communion with God and with our brothers and sisters. I give you my Blessing.
From Saint John Lateran, 28 October 2023.
36th General Chapter - Other Messages
