Acta Apostolicae Sedis - Commentarium Officiale810

ALLOCUTIONES

I

Ad catholicos voluntarios.*

Dear Brother Bishops,

Dear Friends,

I am grateful for the opportunity to greet you as you meet under

the auspices of the Pontifical Council ''Cor Unum'' in this European Year

of Volunteering.

Let me begin by thanking Cardinal Robert Sarah for the kind words he

has addressed to me on your behalf. I would also like to express my deep

gratitude to you and, by extension, to the millions of Catholic volunteers who

contribute, regularly and generously, to the Church's charitable mission

throughout the world. At the present time, marked as it is by crisis and

uncertainty, your commitment is a reason for confidence, since it shows that

goodness exists and that it is growing in our midst. The faith of all Catholics

is surely strengthened when they see the good that is being done in the name

of Christ.1

For Christians, volunteer work is not merely an expression of good will. It

is based on a personal experience of Christ. He was the first to serve human-

ity, he freely gave his life for the good of all. That gift was not based on our

merits. From this we learn that God gives us himself. More than that: Deus

Caritas est - God is love, to quote a phrase from the First Letter of Saint

John 2 which I employed as the title of my first Encyclical Letter. The ex-

perience of God's generous love challenges us and liberates us to adopt the

same attitude towards our brothers and sisters: ''You received with paying,

give without pay''.3 We experience this especially in the Eucharist when the

Son of God, in the breaking of bread, brings together the vertical dimension

of his divine gift with the horizontal dimension of our service to our brothers

and sisters.

* Die 10 Novembris 2011. 1 Cfr Philem 6. 2 4:8 3 Mt 10:8.