FIDELITY TO THE CHURCH, ALWAYS FOLLOWING PETER

October 2019, message of WUCWO President General

María Lía Zervino, Servidora

On October 1, we celebrated the liturgy of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. St. John Paul II, as he proclaimed her Doctor of the Church, said that she had received "the science of divine love" from the Master; that is why, this month, I invite you to share the example of her life.

At the age of 15, this young woman, with great audacity, personally asked Pope Leo XIII for permission to enter the Carmel before the prescribed age. The Pope simply replied: "You will enter, if that is God's will.” She accepted the words of the Holy Father and followed her path with absolute fidelity. This woman left her mark and still continues to mark the history of the Church.

Courage and obedience, fidelity and joy, abandonment and creativity on the way to holiness are some of the characteristics of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face. She is presented by all the Supreme Pontiffs of the last hundred years as a model for the ecclesial community and therefore also for us, women of WUCWO, and for our organisations.

I wish to entrust WUCWO to St. Therese so that the millions of women who are part of our organisation may respond like she did to the evangelisation that the Holy Father is urging us to carry out. His Holiness tells us that the evangelising community "finds a way to let the word take flesh in a particular situation and bear fruits of new life, however imperfect or incomplete these may appear. The disciple is ready to put his or her whole life on the line, even to accepting martyrdom, in bearing witness to Jesus Christ, yet the goal is […] to see God’s word accepted and its capacity for liberation and renewal revealed. […] it knows how to rejoice always. It celebrates every small victory, every step forward in the work of evangelisation” (EG 24).

In order to identify ourselves with the evangelisation faced by the Peter that Jesus wanted for our days (Mt 16, 13, 20), I believe that we need to listen to him attentively, to deepen our Christian formation and, consequently, to act with great docility.

• To listen to him carefully: not to fall into the nets of fake news and interpretations from unreliable sources and often instigated by "the father of lies."
• To deepen our Christian formation: in order to understand the pastoral, theological and dogmatic foundations on which the present pontifical magisterium is based and its evangelising imprint.
• To act with great docility: because, as members of the Church, we live in a moment in which "the science of divine love" is especially required to follow in the footsteps of Peter, with audacity and fidelity.

Therefore, I propose that we celebrate the Amazon Synod: New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology, as a step forward in evangelisation. We can prepare ourselves by reading the preparatory document and the Instrumentum laboris at: http://www.sinodoamazonico.va

You will be able, if you wish, to follow closely the development of the Synod throughout its three-week period (October 6 to 27) through our website, the Newsletter and our social networks (later we will also write in Women’s Voice), because we will participate in the official meetings of the Holy See Press Room and in some of the 130 events, which will be held in Rome, promoted by the project called Amazon: Common Home; WUCWO collaborates with this project, so we will keep you informed.

To conclude, let us remember that St. Therese was proclaimed Patroness of the Missions, without having left her convent, thanks to the profound force of her prayer. May she also pass to us the fruitfulness of her prayer to pray for the Synod and its missionary contributions. Let us implore the action of the Holy Spirit so that the Word may be incarnated in the concrete situation of the Amazon, giving "fruits of new life, even if apparently imperfect or unfinished", may they manifest "their liberating and renewing power."

I say goodbye to you asking Saint Therese to obtain for us the joy of fidelity from our Father God.