Acta Benedicti Pp. XVI 1037

and scribes of Jerusalem, "we cannot but speak of what we have seen and

heard".1 Saint Boniface, Saint Augustine of Canterbury, Saint Francis Xa-

vier, whose feast we keep today, and so many other missionary saints show us

how a deep love for the Lord calls forth a deep desire to bring others to know

him. You too, as you follow in the footsteps of the College Martyrs, are the

men God has chosen to spread the message of the Gospel today, in England

and Wales, in Canada, in Scandinavia. Your forebears faced a real possibility

of martyrdom, and it is right and just that you venerate the glorious memory

of those forty-four alumni of your College who shed their blood for Christ.

You are called to imitate their love for the Lord and their zeal to make him

known, potius hodie quam cras. The consequences, the fruits, you may

confidently entrust into God's hands.

Your first task, then, is to come to know Christ yourselves, and the time

you spend in seminary provides you with a privileged opportunity to do so.

Learn to pray daily, especially in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament,

listening attentively to the word of God and allowing heart to speak to heart,

as Blessed John Henry Newman would say. Remember the two disciples

from the first chapter of Saint John's Gospel, who followed Jesus and asked

to know where he was staying, and, like them, respond eagerly to his invita-

tion to "come and see".2 Allow the fascination of his person to capture your

imagination and warm your heart. He has chosen you to be his friends, not

his servants, and he invites you to share in his priestly work of bringing about

the salvation of the world. Place yourselves completely at his disposal and

allow him to form you for whatever task it may be that he has in mind

for you.

You have heard much talk about the new evangelization, the proclama-

tion of Christ in those parts of the world where the Gospel has already been

preached, but where to a greater or lesser degree the embers of faith have

grown cold and now need to be fanned once more into a flame. Your College

motto speaks of Christ's desire to bring fire to the earth, and your mission is

to serve as his instruments in the work of rekindling the faith in your respec-

tive homelands. Fire in sacred Scripture frequently serves to indicate the

divine presence, whether it be the burning bush from which God revealed

his name to Moses, the pillar of fire that guided the people of Israel on their

journey from slavery to freedom, or the tongues of fire that descended upon

1 Acts 4:20. 2 1:37-39.