Dear sisters, brothers, good morning and welcome to all!

I am very pleased to meet with you and to share this moment of reflection. We will draw inspiration from today's Liturgy, the Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist.

In the Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul exhorts: "Live a life worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience […] one hope, that of your calling."

This is an invitation to faithfulness, to which your Federation responds according to the charism of St. Clare and St. Francis, in contemplative prayer, in poverty and in total adherence to the Gospel. To this end, the work of revising and updating your Constitutions that you have carried out is praiseworthy, bringing together the contributions of many. They reaffirm that "the first and principal task of all religious is the contemplation of divine realities and constant union with God in prayer." As St. Clare wrote to St. Agnes of Bohemia: "Place your mind before the mirror of eternity, place your soul in the splendor of glory, place your heart in the figure of the divine substance, and transform your whole being into the image of the Godhead itself through contemplation."

And it is precisely with "the mind before the mirror of eternity" that I invite you to look both at the present time, with its dramas and uncertainties, and at the challenges of your "small world," rich in its past and called to look toward the future with hope. The reduced number of vocations, in particular, could push someone toward choices of closure or retreat. But I want to repeat to you what I have said about the future of Dioceses and Seminaries in Italy. Let us try to change our perspective on this reality. Its difficulties, in fact, can help us discover or rediscover unexpected potential, "not so much in terms of numerical strength but of the quality of the proposal." Today's Gospel reminds us of this, saying: "Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do." The numerical decline of communities — and the fear that results from it, of losing one's autonomy — must not trouble us or take away hope, but should instead push us toward a renewal of our lived experience and an even greater commitment to the spiritual accompaniment of those who knock on the doors of monasteries, to grow joyful and living communities, in which one experiences intimacy with God, affability, communion, authenticity of relationships. Vocations are not born from the application of organizational strategies, nor from campaigns devised at a desk, but from prayer, from familiarity with the Gospel, from silence, from knowing how to welcome oneself with one's own imperfections, from feeling part of a whole that creates unity. And to do this, the Lord does not ask us to be flawless, but to let ourselves be shaped by his grace, humbly, day by day.

This offers us the opportunity to speak of another important theme: that of formation, both initial and ongoing. Form yourselves and form others in an enclosure lived in a spirit of deep communion among yourselves and with the Church; in a silence that, in a society dominated by haste and noise, makes one feel the need for times and spaces in which to stop, to discern, without fear of losing the "fleeting moment."

This, moreover, is also the specific missionary character of the cloistered vocation. Psalm 18, also taken from today's Liturgy, says: "Without speech, without words, without their voice being heard, their proclamation goes out through all the earth, and their message to the ends of the world." Formed in the school of the Gospel, the Lord calls you to be his witnesses in silence and contemplation, placing you in history as a living and prophetic memory of the Good News.

As sisters of St. Clare, moreover, you have a special message to proclaim, which passes first of all through observance of the Rule and your Constitutions. It is part of your being and your mission to live the Gospel, leaving behind all that belongs to the world, totally and constantly turned toward the first and only Love of your life. This implies sobriety, detachment from things, self-surrender in obedience, transparency, in a life that is simple, yet also radical and demanding, a precious sign of faithfulness, especially in a globalized and restless world, in which the taste and capacity for "putting down roots" seem to have been lost.

For this reason, dear sisters, I would like to conclude by returning to a question posed by your Federal Assistant: "Can cloistered women's monasteries offer answers to humanity's questions of meaning today?" To answer, he indicated four means that I consider important: mutual listening; koinonia, as communion of intent, to avoid isolation; diakonia, to serve and work together; martyria, to bear witness to the Gospel. I leave them with you as sure paths for your journey.

Dear Sisters, I thank you for what you do and for what you are: "torches, sentinels for the Church and for the world," signs of the presence of the kingdom of God on earth.

I am glad to have met you and, invoking the intercession of Mary, of Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi and of Blessed Maria Lorenza Longo, I wholeheartedly impart to you the Apostolic Blessing.