Very Reverend in Christ Minister General,

...I shall certainly join all the communities and all the friars in praying that the Lord grant that you experience the fire of Pentecost.

Living here in Jerusalem I have had the opportunity of admiring at close quarters the spirituality of the friars and their life of dedication and sacrifice in the service of the Holy Places. I admire them particularly at a time when the diminution of pilgrims makes their lifestyle more ascetical and eremitical, especially in the small shrines. I am sure that the Lord will draw great fruit from this sacrifice and this patient waiting.

You justly feel the need to avail yourselves of all the stimuli for living your charism of communion in a world that is ever more divided and conflicted. You have a fundamental recipe for this world, that of life lived according to the gospel beatitudes. Your capacity of expressing, following the example of St. Francis, the simplicity, the fraternity, the forgiveness and the joy that come from the beatitudes is the most important thing that can be done by Christians today in the service of peace. I maintain that it is also urgent to deepen the work of evangelisation through a prayerful knowledge of the Scriptures, personally living the lectio divina and helping many others to pray from the Scriptures, as is recommended in the last chapter of Dei Verbum. Representing so many cultures, peoples and nations, it will also be important for you to cultivate that equanimity, absence of prejudice and superiority in all the vicissitudes of conflict which allows you to look at the other side with affection, with passion, sympathy and participation, so that no-one ever feels put to one side or considered as one party against another, but that all feel embraced by a common love...