Greetings from the PRESIDENT OF THE APOSTOLIC MOVEMENT
to the Speaker HIS MOST REV. EXC. MONSIGNOR MARIO TOSO
Titular Bishop of Bisarcio
SECRETARY OF PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE

(Rome Auditorium Conciliazione – November 24, 2010)

Your Excellency, with joyful sincerity on behalf of all the Apostolic Movement, I offer you a warm welcome. Thank you for having accepted the invitation to be here this evening to offer us your precious reflection entitled “Youth: in charity and truth.” The theme is clearly an echo of the Encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” of Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy Father, to whom we express filial affection and complete obedience in the faith in the Risen Lord; reminds us that the message of Jesus Christ is the “first and principal factor of development of the human person as a whole” (Caritas in Veritate, n. 8 ). At the recent Plenary Assembly of the Ministry of which you are the Secretary, He reiterated again that “thanks to the proclamation of Jesus Christ, one can proceed on the path of integral human growth with the ardour of the charity and wisdom of truth in a world in which lies often set traps for men, society and the, sharing.” The Fifth National Convention that we are celebrating this evening can be considered as a significant step in the itinerary that progressively and diligently, has seen the Apostolic Movement committed in reflecting and interrogating itself about its mission and path in the living framework of the Church.
Excellency, the Apostolic Movement, which took its first steps in November 1979 in Catanzaro, through the Inspirer and Founder, Mrs. Maria Marino, to whom we express our thanks for her constant and unconditional “yes” to the Lord and His Mother; has as its charisma the remembrance and proclamation of the Word of Jesus. The Word of Christ, which is expressed in various ways, like a song with various voices, like a symphony, according to an expression dear to His Holiness and present in the Post-Synod Exhortation Verbum Domini (n.7), aliments the lives of individual believers and the church community. In fact, it grows in its ability of prophesy and renewal of mentalities, cultures and public institutions if, in addition to the gift of the Word, lives with greater intensity the sacramental life and the communion with the Wisdom that comes from above. As it was recently written by you, the Church really wants to revive the evangelical commitment to an authentic humanization of all institutional realities, so that they become more and more educational places, in which justice, the moral experience of Christians and the dignity of the human person are promoted (cf. M. Toso, the realism of the love of Christ, Rome 2010). With Your authority as a Bishop you are going to talk to all of us, especially to young people, who represent the vitality of the Church and the hope of a future oriented to the good and evangelically more luminous. Young people are the “jewels of Jesus and the future of the Church”, as our Inspirer likes to define them. They are numerous this evening and they will listen to you willingly, confident that you will show them a sure direction on which to set out in order to build, in the love of Christ, a shared present and a more just and fraternal tomorrow.
A special thanks to our beloved Archbishop Antonio Ciliberti who with paternal spirit is always present at our National Conventions encouraging us with his word and his testimony of faith. To all of you who have taken part in this V National Congress of the Apostolic Movement: Reverend Bishops, Civil and Military Authorities, Reverend Priests, Religious people, lay consecrated, representatives of groups, movements and associations, Holy people of God, my personal thanks and those of the Inspirer and Founder of all the Apostolic Movement.
We will pray for you, Your Excellency, so that the Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints protect and keep you in the execution of your high ministry for the benefit of the whole Church.

Rome, 24 November 2010

Cettina Marraffa
President of the Apostolic Movement