"Everything in our life begins with an encounter", he continued. "Let us   
   think of the Gospel of John, in which he narrates the disciples' first   
   encounter with Jesus. Andrew, John and Simon felt as if they were seen in   
   depth, known intimately, and this generated surprise in them, a stupor that   
   immediately made them feel linked to Him. ... This was the decisive discovery   
   for St. Paul, for St. Augustine, and many others: Jesus Christ always precedes   
   us; when we arrive, He is already waiting for us. He is like the flower of the   
   almond tree, the first to bloom and to herald the spring".   
    However, this dynamic of encounter that arouses stupor and adhesion without   
   mercy, as "only he who has known the tender caress of mercy truly knows the   
   Lord. The privileged locus of encounter is the caress of Jesus Christ's mercy   
   towards my sin. It is for this reason that, at times, you have heard me say   
   that the privileged locus of encounter with Jesus Christ is sin. It is thanks   
   to that merciful embrace that the wish to respond and to change emerges, and   
   from this there springs a different life. Christian morality is not a titanic   
   and voluntary effort on the part of those who decide to be coherent and   
   achieve it, a sort of solitary challenge before the world. No. Christian   
   morality is the answer, it is the touched response when faced with the   
   surprising mercy, unpredictable, even 'unjust' according to human criteria, of   
   One who knows me, Who knows my betrayals and loves me all the same, ... who   
   calls me again, has hope in me. ... Christian morality is not about never   
   falling, but about always getting up again, thanks to His hand that reaches   
   out to us".   
    "And the way of the Church is also this: letting God's great mercy be shown",   
   he exclaimed. "The road of the Church is that of never condemning anyone   
   eternally; of effusing God's mercy to all those people who ask for it with a   
   sincere heart; the road of the Church is precisely that of leaving behind   
   one's own yard in order to go and seek those in the distant peripheries of   
   existence; that of fully adopting God's logic. The Church too must feel the   
   joyful impulse of becoming almond flowers, like Jesus, for all humanity".   
    Returning to the celebration of sixty years of Communion and Liberation, the   
   Pope emphasised that after this time the "original charism" has lost neither   
   its freshness nor its vitality. "But, always remember that there is only one   
   centre: Jesus Christ. When I put at the centre my spiritual method, my   
   spiritual path, my way of putting it into practice, I stray from the road. All   
   the spirituality, all the charisms in the Church must be decentred: at the   
   centre there is only the Lord!".   
    He continued, "Charism cannot be conserved in a bottle of distilled water!   
   Loyalty to the charism does not mean 'petrifying' it - it is the devil who   
   petrifies - does not mean writing it on parchment and framing it. Reference to   
   the legacy that Don Giussani has left you cannot be reduced to a museum of   
   memories, of decisions made, of norms of conduct. It certainly involves   
   faithfulness to tradition, but as Mahler said, this means 'keeping the flame   
   alive and not worshipping the ashes'. Don Giussani would never forgive you if   
   you lost your freedom and transformed into museum guides or worshippers of   
   ashes. Keep alive the memory of that first encounter and be free! In this way,   
   centre in Christ and in the Gospel, you can be the arms, hands, feet, mind and   
   heart of an outbound Church. The path of the Church takes us out in search of   
   those who are far away, in the peripheries, to serve Jesus in every   
   marginalised and abandoned person, without faith, disappointed in the Church,   
   prisoner of his or her own self-centredness".   
    "Reaching out also means rejecting self-referentiality, in all its forms; it   
   means knowing how to listen to those who are not the same as us, learning from   
   all, with sincere humility. When we are slaves to self-referentiality we end   
   up cultivating a sort of branded spirituality: 'I am CL'. This becomes your   
   label. And in this way we fall into the myriad traps set by self-referential   
   complacency, that gazing at oneself in the mirror that leads to disorientation   
   and our transformation into mere impresarios of NGOs".   
    The Pope concluded his discourse with the words of Don Giussani, from one of   
   his first writings, in which he affirmed that Christianity cannot be realised   
   in history as fixed position to defend, that relate to the new in terms of   
   pure antithesis, and from his letter to John Paul II in 2004 on the occasion   
   of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of Communion and Liberation: 'I   
   never intended to "found" anything. I believe that the genius of the movement   
   that I have seen come into being is that of having grasped the urgency of   
   proclaiming the need to return to the elementary aspects of Christianity,   
   meaning passion for Christianity as such, in its original elements, and   
   nothing more'."   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    The Holy Father to preside at Confession in St. Peter's Basilica on 13 March   
    Vatican City, 7 March 2015 (VIS) - The Office of Liturgical Celebrations of   
   the Supreme Pontiff today announced that the Holy Father will preside at the   
   rite of the reconciliation of penitents, with individual confession and   
   absolution, on Friday 13 March at 5 p.m in St. Peter's Basilica.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Oath-taking Ceremony of the Cardinal Camerlengo   
    Vatican City, 7 March 2015 (VIS) - At 9.30 this morning, in the Chapel of   
   Urban VIII, in the presence of the Holy Father, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran,   
   president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, took his oath   
   as Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Cardinal Orlando B. Quevedo, Pope's special envoy to Nagasaki   
    Vatican City, 7 March 2015 (VIS) - In a letter published today, written in   
   Latin and dated 15 February, the Holy Father appoints Cardinal Orlando B.   
   Quevedo, O.M.I., archbishop of Cotabato, Philippines, as his special envoy to   
   the celebration of the centenary of the discovery of the "hidden Christians of   
   Japan", to be held in Nagasaki, Japan from 14 to 17 March.   
    The mission accompanying the cardinal will be composed of Rev. Peter Sakae   
   Kojima, vicar general, member of the college of consultors and parish priest   
   of the Cathedral of Nagasaki, and Fr. Joseph Pasala, S.V.D., missionary from   
   India and parish vicar of Nishimachi.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Audiences   
    Vatican City, 9 March 2015 (VIS) - Today, the Holy Father received in   
   audience:   
    - Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church;   
    - Fourteen prelates of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea, on their   
   "ad Limina" visit:   
    - Archbishop Hyginus Kim Hee-joong of Gwangju, with his auxiliary, Bishop   
   Simon Ok Hyun-jin;   
    - Bishop Peter Kang U-il of Cheju;   
    - Bishop Vincent Ri Pyung-ho of Jeonju;   
    - Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung, archbishop of Seoul, apostolic administrator   
   "sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis" of P'youg-yang with his auxiliaires,   
   Bishop Basil Cho Kyu-man, BishopTimothy Yu Gyoung-chon, and Bishop Peter Chung   
   Soon-taek;   
    - Bishop Luke Kim Woon-hoe of Ch'unch,?n, apostolic administrator "sede   
   vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis" of Hamh?ng;   
    - Bishop Lazzaro You Heung-sik of Daejeon, with his auxiliary, Bishop   
   Augustinus Kim Jong-soo;   
    - Bishop Boniface Choi Ki-san, with his auxiliary, Bishop John Baptist Jung   
   Shin-chul; and   
    - Dom Blasio Park Hyun-dong, O.S.B., apostolic administrator "ad nutum   
   Sanctae Sedis" of the dell'Abbazia di T?kwon   
    On Saturday, 7 March, the Holy Father received in audience Cardinal Marc   
   Ouellet, P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Other Pontifical Acts   
    On Saturday, 7 March, the Holy Father:   
    - appointed Rev. Fr. David Macaire, O.P., as archbishop of Fort-de-France   
   (area 1,080, population 390,371, Catholics 312,296, priests 54, permanent   
   deacons 12, religious 151), Martinique, France. The bishop-elect was born in   
   Nanterre, France in 1969, gave his perpetual vows in 1998 and was ordained a   
   priest in 2001. He holds a licentiate in theology and canon law from Tolosa,   
   and has served in a number of pastoral roles, including chaplain of various   
   schools, lecturer in theology at the major seminary of Bordeaux, spiritual   
   adviser of the Equipe Notre Dame, master of Dominican students, prior of the   
   Dominican convent in the archdiocese of Bordeaux, and member of the   
   presbyteral council of the same local Church. He is currently prior of the   
   Dominican convent of La Sainte-Baume, Tolone, and member of the provincial   
   council.   
    - accepted the resignation from the office of auxiliary of the diocese of   
   Rome presented by Bishop Paolo Schiavon, upon reaching the age limit.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
   For more information and to search for documents refer to the site:   
   www.visnews.org and www.vatican.va   
      
   Copyright (VIS):  the news contained in the services of the Vatican   
   Information Service may be reproduced wholly or partially by quoting   
   the source:  V. I. S. - Vatican Information Service.   
   http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/vis/vis_en.html   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)