Pope Francis explains the fundamental rule of religious life

Pope Francis assured this Friday that “the fundamental rule of religious life is the following of Christ proposed by the Gospel” and the constant and daily search for the Lord.

On Friday morning, January 13, Pope Francis received in audience the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, to whom he spoke about the indispensability of consecrated life.

At the beginning of his speech, the Holy Father said, “although each Congregation enjoys its autonomy, this does not prevent the Confederate Statutes from providing for competencies that favor a balance between this autonomy.”

He further explained that this balance also allows for “an adequate coordination that avoids independence and isolation.”

In this sense, he warned that “isolation is dangerous” and defended that “we must be cautious to protect ourselves from the disease of self-referentiality and preserve communion between the different Congregations as a true treasure.”

For Pope Francis, “consecrated life is like water; if it does not flow, it rots, it loses meaning, it is like salt that loses flavor, it becomes useless.”

He then advised those present not to be content “with an archaeological memory, because it turns us into museum pieces, perhaps worthy of admiration but not imitation.”

“Instead,” the Holy Father explained, “Deuteronomic memory helps us live the present fully and fearlessly to open ourselves to the future with renewed hope.

Later, Pope Francis assured that “the fundamental rule of religious life is the following of Christ proposed by the Gospel.”

Starting from this idea, he asked those present to make the Gospel their “vade mecum” to move away from “the temptation to reduce it to ideology.”

“The Gospel constantly reminds us to place Christ at the center of our life and mission, and this brings us back to ‘first love,'” the Pope noted.

He further explained that “loving Christ means loving the Church, his body. Consecrated life is born in the Church, grows with the Church, and bears fruit as Church”.

“It is in the Church, as St. Augustine teaches us, that we discover the total Christ,” he added.

As Canons Regular, the Pope said their main occupation “is the constant and daily search for the Lord.”

He also invited them to “seek the Lord in the assiduous reading of Sacred Scripture, in whose pages Christ and the Church resound.”

“Seek the Lord in the liturgy, especially in the Eucharist, the summit of the Christian life, which signifies and realizes the unity of the Church in the harmony of charity,” he advised.

He also encouraged them to seek the Lord “in the study and in ordinary pastoral work” as well as “in the realities of our time, knowing that nothing human can be alien to us and that, free from all worldliness, we can animate the world with the leaven of the Kingdom of God.”

“These are the different paths of a single quest, which involves the path of interiority, knowledge, and love of the Lord, in the school of St. Augustine,” the Pope assured.

“In this way, the light of the interior Master illumines us in temporal realities,” he concluded.