PAUL VI
A LIVING PRESENCE
IN THE SERVICE OF
THE WORLD AND OF THE CHURCH*
(8.25.1976)
Dear Sons and
Daughters in the Lord,
1. We accepted very
willingly the request of the Executive Council of the World Conference of Secular
Institutes when it duly informed us of its desire for this meeting. It offers us, in fact,
the opportunity to express to you, with our esteem, the Church's hopes in the special
witness the Secular Institutes are called to bear among men today.
2. It is not
necessary to stop to throw light on the particular characteristics which define your
vocation. For, in their fundamental features which are "a completely consecrated
life, following the evangelical counsels, and a presence and an action intended in all
responsibility, to change the world from within", these characteristics can now be
considered a certain attainment of your institutional conscience. We recalled all this on
the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution Provida
Mater (Address on 2nd February 1972).
3. In the position
that we hold, our desire is to stress rather the fundamental duty which springs from the
characteristics just called to mind, that is, the duty of being faithful. This
faithfulness, which is not opposition to progress, means, above all, attention to the Holy
Spirit who renews the universe (cf. Rev. 21:5). Secular Institutes, in fact, are
alive to the extent to which they take part in man's history, and bear witness, among the
men of today, to God's fatherly love, revealed by Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit (cf.
Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, 26 ) .
4. If they remain
faithful to their specific vocation, Secular Institutes will become, as it were, "the
experimental laboratory" in which the Church tests the concrete ways of her relations
with the world. That is why they must listen to the appeal of the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii
nuntiandi, as being addressed particularly to them: "Their primary task... is the
implementation of all Christian and evangelical possibilities, hidden but already present
and active in things of the world. The specific field of their evangelising activity is
the vast and complicated world of politics, social matters, economy, but also culture,
sciences and arts, international life and the mass media" (no. 70).
5. This does not
mean, of course, that Secular Institutes, as such, must undertake these tasks. That
normally falls on each of their members. It is therefore the duty of the Institutes
themselves to form the conscience of their members to a maturity and open-mindedness which
drive them to prepare zealously for the profession chosen, in order to face afterwards,
competently and in a spirit of evangelical detachment, the weight and the joy of the
social responsibilities towards which Providence will direct them.
6. This
faithfulness of the Secular Institutes to their specific vocation must be expressed above
all in faithfulness to prayer, which is the foundation of strength and fruitfulness. It is
a very good thing, therefore, that you have chosen, as the central subject of your
Assembly, prayer as the "expression of secular consecration" and the
"source of the apostolate and the key to formation". The fact is that you are in
search of prayer that will express your concrete situation as persons "consecrated in
the world".
7. We exhort you,
therefore, to continue this search, endeavouring to act in such a way that your spiritual
experience may serve as an example to every layman. In fact, for anyone who is consecrated
in a Secular Institute, spiritual life consists in being able to assume one's profession,
social relations, environment of life, etc. as particular forms of collaborating in the
coming of the Kingdom of heaven. It consists further in knowing how to impose rest periods
on oneself in order to come into more direct contact with God, to thank him and to ask him
for forgiveness, light, energy and inexhaustible charity for others.
8. Each of you
certainly benefits from the support of his Institute through the spiritual guidance it
gives, but especially through the communion that exists among those who share the same
ideal under the leadership of those responsible. And, knowing that God has given his Word,
the consecrated person will set himself very regularly to listen to Holy Scripture,
studied lovingly and accepted with a purified and available soul, to seek in it, as well
as in the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church, a correct interpretation of his daily
experience lived in the world. In a special way, based on the very fact of his
consecration to God, he will feel committed to promoting the efforts of the Council for a
more and more intimate participation in the sacred liturgy, aware that a well-ordered
liturgical life, closely integrated in the consciences and habits of the faithful, will
help to keep the religious sense alert and permanent, in our times, and to give the Church
a new springtime of spiritual life.
9. Prayer will then
become the expression of a mysterious and sublime reality, shared by all Christians, that
is, the expression of our reality as children of God. It will be an expression that the
Holy Spirit purifies and assumes as his own prayer, urging us to cry with him:
"Abba", that is, Father! (cf Rom 8, 14 f; Gal 4,4 f ).
10. Such prayer, if
it becomes a conscious part of the very context of secular activities, is then a real
expression of secular consecration.
11 . These are the
thoughts, dear sons and daughters, that we wish to entrust to your reflection, in order to
help you in your search for a more and more faithful response to the will of God, who
calls you to be in the world, not to assume its spirit, but to bear witness in its midst
in a way that will help your brothers to accept the newness of the Spirit in Christ.
With our Apostolic
Blessing.
Rome, 25th August,
1976.
* The original text is in French