Messaggio della Consigliera, Sr. Alaide Deretti_14 ottobre 2018_ENG

1. Listeningtime
Rome, 14 October 2018.
Dearest Sisters,
A very affectionate greeting to each of you and a remembrance in prayer,
especially in this ‘missionary month’ so that each one may hear Jesus' invitation resound in her
heart: “Go into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature”.
May our joyous response, our broadened gaze, and our heart without frontiers, be open to the great
needs of young people.
It is precisely these young people who are at the center of the Church's attention in this XV
Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops – Youth, faith and vocational discernment
– which has been underway since October 3rd and will end on October 28th.
Pope Francis always insists that the Church needs to listen to the young. The Working Instrument of
the Synod reaffirms that the Church must listen to young people, no one excluded! And, even before
that, the Preparatory Document for the Synod already called for growth in the “culture of
listening”.
Looking at the reality around us, we can sense how much our time needs to be transformed into
listening time. Listening to the cry of youth, “listening to their stories, their joys and hopes, their
sadness and anguish, to share them: this is the way to enculturate the Gospel and to evangelize
every culture, including that of youth”.
It can be a great opportunity for us and also a commitment to grow in the ability to listen! As every
morning during Meditation, we listen to the Word of God, in the same way, immersed in our daily
mission, young people become for us FMA the Word of God that must be received and listened to
in the light of reason, of religion, and of loving-kindness.
Dearest Sisters,
In addition to the Synod on Youth, the month of October offers us another GREAT GIFT: the
canonization of Pope Paul VI, a Pope with a missionary heart, open to the new frontiers of his time,
a lover of the young!
It is said that one day Pope Paul VI, addressing Brother Roger of Taizé, told him: “If you have the
key to communicating the faith to the young, tell me what it is!”.
A very current request!
In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (No. 72), Pope Montini writes: “The
circumstances invite us to pay special attention to the young. Their numerical increase and their
growing presence in society, the problems that beset them must awaken in everyone the concern to
offer them, with zeal and intelligence, the evangelical ideal to be known and lived. But on the other
hand, it is necessary that the young, well trained in faith and prayer, become ever more the apostles
of youth. The Church relies heavily on their contribution and we ourselves, on various occasions,
have expressed our full trust in them”.

2. Listeningtime
Dearest Sisters,
On this 14th October I invite you to participate with “an ecclesial and missionary heart” in the
Canonization of Blessed Pope Paul VI and to thank God for the gift of his holiness, an important
gift for our Institute.
On July 15, 1972, during the Audience on the occasion of the first centenary of the Institute, Pope
Paul VI described the difficulties that the Church, the world, young people were going through at
that time and compared the Church to a boat that never sinks because Jesus is there: Jesus is
present! He concluded his thought with a question and a suggestion: “Will your Congregation
respond to the Church's expectations in the tormented hour that we are living? (...) I would like each
one to answer silently in her own heart: I will do what I can.”
Then, dear Sisters,
Giving continuity to the project “For a common home in the diversity of peoples”, I would like to
propose to you to listen to at least one young migrant in these days. That is, listen to a young
migrant or more than one, listen to “their stories, their joys and hopes, their sadness and anguish, to
share them”: this is the only way to bring the Gospel to young people and young people to the
Gospel. It is the only way to make young people the protagonists of their own history, and not only!
To make them also and above all “missionaries of other young people”.
As Pope Paul VI, I ask each one to respond in the secret of your heart: “I will do what I can”. “I
will do what I can”...
I thank you for all the resonances received by the Sector in recent months, thus showing your
appreciation for the proposals that come from the project “For a common home in the diversity of
peoples”. Moreover, I express to you GREAT thanks for your closeness and prayer in regard to the
new missionaries who on September 30th received the mandate and the missionary cross in the
Basilica of Mary Help of Christians.
When we listen to the cry of the young and the needs of the Church and of the Institute, we cannot
remain still and blocked in our own ‘little world’. The Prophet Isaiah says (40:31): “They that hope
in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on eagles’ wings; they will run and not grow
weary, walk and not grow faint”.
From attentive and loving listening, there is always an answer of love and trust, an answer that
makes us run without wearying and walk without growing faint: “Here I am, send me!”.
There are many young migrants waiting for our gaze, our closeness, our ‘being neighbor’; who
await a heart consecrated to the Lord that knows how to listen!
I embrace you and assure you of my closeness and my affection,
Councilor for the Missions