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".   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    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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