VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXVI - # 40
DATE 26-02-2016

Summary:
- Benedict XVI's first encyclical, "Deus caritas est", remains timely
- Audiences

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 Benedict XVI's first encyclical, "Deus caritas est", remains timely
 Vatican City, 26 February 2016 (VIS) "The message of the Encyclical Deus
Caritas Est remains timely, indicating the ever relevant prospect for the
Church's journey. The more we live in this spirit, the more authentic we all
are
as Christians", said Pope Francis this morning as he received in audience in
the
Clementine Hall the participants in the two-day international congress "Love
will never end: Prospects ten years on from the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est",
organised by the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum", which analysed the theological
and pastoral repercussions and prospects opened by Pope Benedict XVI's first
encyclical.
 The text, said Francis, "concerns a theme that allows us to retrace the entire
history of the Church, which is also a history of charity. It is a story of the
love received from God, to be carried to the world: this charity received and
given is the fulcrum of the history of the Church and of the history of each
one
of us. ... Both for individual members of the faithful and for the Christian
community as a whole, the words of Jesus hold true: that charity is the first
and greatest of the commandments: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your
strength... You shall love your neighbour as yourself'".
 The present Jubilee Year, continued the Holy Father, "is also an opportunity
to
return to this beating heart of our life and our witness, to the centre of the
proclamation of faith: 'God is love'. God does not simply have the desire or
capacity to love; God is love: charity is His essence, it is His nature. He is
unique, but not solitary; ... He cannot be closed in on Himself because He is
communion, He is charity; and charity by its nature is communicated and shared.
In this way, God associates man to His life of love, and even if man turns away
from Him, God does not remain distant but goes out to meet him. This going out
to meet us, culminating in the Incarnation of His Son, is His mercy. It is His
way of expressing Himself to us sinners, His face that looks at us and cares
for
us. The encyclical reads: 'Jesus' programme is a heart which sees. This heart
sees where love is needed and acts accordingly'. Charity and mercy are in this
way closely related, because they are God's way of being and acting: His
identity and His name".
 The first aspect which the Encyclical recalls for us is the face of God: "who
is the God we can encounter in Christ? How faithful and unsurpassable is His
love? ... All our expressions of love, of solidarity, of sharing are but a
reflection of that love which is God. He, without ever tiring, pours out His
love on us, and we are called to become witnesses to this love in the world.
Therefore, we should look to divine charity as to the compass which orients our
lives, before embarking on any activity: there we find direction; from charity
we learn how to see our brothers and sisters and the world".
 Pope Francis also referred to a second aspect of the Encyclical - the need for
charity to be increasingly reflected in the life of the Church. "How I wish
that
everyone in the Church, every institution, every activity would show that God
loves man!", he exclaimed. "The mission that our charitable organisations carry
out is important, because they provide so many poor people with a more
dignified
and human life, which is needed more than ever. But this mission is of utmost
importance because, not with words, but with concrete love it can make every
person feel loved by the Father, loved as His son or daughter and destined for
eternal life with Him".
 "I would like to thank all those who daily are committing themselves to this
mission which challenges every Christian", he concluded. "In this Jubilee Year,
my intention has been to emphasise that we can all experience the grace of the
Jubilee by putting into practice the spiritual and corporal works of mercy: to
live the works of mercy means to conjugate the verb 'to love' according to
Jesus. In this way then, all of us together can contribute concretely to the
great mission of the Church: to communicate the love of God which is meant to
be
spread".

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 Audiences
 Vatican City, 26 February 2016 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father received
in
audience:
 - Archbishop Osvaldo Padilla, apostolic nuncio in Korea and Mongolia, with
family members;
 - Bodo Ramelow, minister-president of Thuringia, Germany, with his wife and
entourage;
 - Archbishop Aldo Giordano, apostolic nuncio in Venezuela;
 - Archbishop Jean-Abdo Arbach of Homs of the Greek-Melkites, Syria.

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