On Sunday, June 9, we will receive the Holy Spirit. What a source of grace and conversion for all of us! "When comes… the Spirit of truth… he will be my witness. And you too will be my witnesses…" (Jn 15:26).

I was sitting in front of the altar of the chair in St Peter's, participating in the Mass that the Holy Father celebrated to open the Assembly of Caritas Internationalis, and I was thinking of you... the warm image of WUCWO women working silently in so many places on the planet and with so many different commitments came to my mind... acting as His Holiness described: step by step, without haste and without pause, on the way to "the humility of listening, the charism of working together and the courage of renunciation." How good it would be if we could meditate and "taste" that homily of Pope Francis! (23 May 2019). I advise you to read it.

At a crucial moment in human and Church history, we need the action of the Spirit to convert us and make us able to listen to the outcasts, children of God like ourselves; to work more in networks, establishing fruitful relationships between our organisations and to create new answers to current problems, with no fear of giving up what was "always done this way," when necessary.

The spiritual scourges of the gaping wounds suffered by the Church today, before which we cannot close our eyes or remain indifferent, the persecutions and martyrdom suffered by Christians, the harmful consequences of a false vision of women's rights are some of the dramas that cannot leave us with our arms crossed. The cry of the planet and of the most needy is challenging us. We are responsible for our own and others' integral ecological conversion.

The Pope says that the presence of “vulnerable people […] is an invitation to recover some of those essential dimensions of our Christian existence and our humanity that risk being overlooked in a prosperous society.” […] «Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all» (Mk 10:43-44). (…) Jesus Christ asks us not to yield to the logic of the world, which justifies injustice to others for my own gain or that of my group. “Me first, and then the others!” Instead, the true motto of the Christian is, “The last shall be first!” (Message of Pope Francis for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2019).

May the Holy Spirit, who renews all things, grant us a conversion of the heart. May we be able to see, judge and act the other way round of how the world is doing it and in line with the Gospel! Let us go hand in hand with Mary, Mother of the Church at Pentecost, to carry out, each in her own environment, the "revolution of tenderness." This is the feminine face that the women of WUCWO can offer to today's world.

I say goodbye by sharing with you the faces and statements of the participants in the WUCWO Board meeting 2019, collected in this institutional video (you can share it with your Whatsapp contacts): click here to watch it.