Letter of Stanislaw Cardinal Ryłko. President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity

PONTIFICIUM CONSILIUM
PRO LAICIS
1156/08/S-61/B 41

Dear Sir:

I’m glad to send you as General Secretary, Greetings for all the members of the Claretian Secular’s Movement that are celebrating this July, 8th 2008, the 25th anniversary of our foundation.

For you, Claretian Seculars, that are looking to manifest your adhesion to Christ through the spirit of your founder and inspire, St. Antonio María Claret, this celebration is very meaningful. Twenty five years of peregrination, a checkpoint that invites you to thank God for all the Gifts and Bless that happened in your lives and in your Movement. Its also a chance of renew and projection to the future: you, Claretian Seculars, identified by Christ Missioner, feel the urgency to get the call of Christ to extend the Kingdom of God and meet the human being in all the possible scenarios. This requires a continuous formation in the faith and coherency of Christian life, to answer properly to all the actual culture tendencies that are against the dignity of the people, created as image of God. About how can we answer to so many challenges that overpass the own human strength, the Pope Benedictus XVI cheer us not to loose the hope and offer us a bighting key: « We could count a lot of problems that exist nowadays and is precise to solve, but all of them only can be solved if God is in the middle, if God is visible in our life and comes into the world in a decisive way through us » (BENEDICTO XVI, Homily to the bishops of Switzerland , November, 7th 2006).

Every apostolic Project must have God in the middle. Your founder, St. Antonio María Claret, called himself “apostolic missioner”, understanding that definition as a gift that configures the Christian with some particular things in the mystery of Christ (cfr. Principles, 3). Christ, in all his apostolic action, was inspired and moved by the Holy Spirit of love. The Spirit is also the source of the mission of the Church who gives to the Christian the happiness and the care for the evangelization (cfr. Lc 4,18-19). That’s why the few references to the Holy Spirit that can be read in our Principles have to be for you a continuous reference for your thoughts and action: live the existence moved under the inspirations of the Spirit that allows to put God in the middle of our apostolic mission and carry the love of Christ to the people with an affective and effective charity.

A second element, quite important to the society nowadays and with a great importance is the style of your apostolic mission, your purpose of offering the experience of the faith lived in community. The community focused in the Lord Jesus is a privileged medium itself to announce the Gospel in a selfish world, where the persons live more lonely. You’ve made yours the words: « Anyone can grow alone, as anyone can live alone. Anyone has given himself the faith, as anyone has given the life himself. (…) Each believer is like a link in the big chain of the believers. I can’t believe without being hold by the faith of the others, and by my faith I help to hold the faith of the others » (Catholic Church Catechism, n. 166).

I want to end this small greet and felicitation looking straight to María, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church, which St Antonio María Claret had a great devotion and which had an specific presence in his apostolic mission. Your founder felt formed in the forge of love of María. Make yours the feelings of your founder that felt formed in the forge of love of María. He didn’t see himself as a main character of the apostolic mission, but he was an instrument of his holy maternity. María was present always in his life and in his missioner predication by saying: «Holy María is my Mother, my Teacher, my Guide and my everything after Jesus » ( Cfr. S. ANTONIO MARÍA CLARET, Self biography, n. 5). With the same spirit, leave yourself be formed by the maternal love of the Virgin María, so you can feel strongly that your apostolic action and your testimony is a conclusion of the spiritual mother María.

The Pontifice Council for the Lays cheers you to go on with your evangelizing labor with decision, bravery and creativity. Knowing that you’re over 25 countries all over the world, I vote for a world with our Movement everywhere and, that grow specifically your solidarity and evangelizing compromise with the most poor, caring for help to satisfy the hunger of bread and the hunger of God that is in the human’s heart.

I hope this 25th anniversary of your foundation renew in your care for your santity and your mission, orientated to the men and women to their destiny and helping them to develop fully the freedom as God’s sons and daughters.
With my bless, cordial greets in Christ,

Stanislaw Card. Rylko Presidente