PERPETUAL VOWS
Missionaries of Charity, Rome, 23 May 2026.
Just as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; Remain in my love
Dear Missionaries of Charity, Dear friends,
On this wonderful day of their perpetual vows, our Missionaries of Charity sisters embody the words of the psalm we have just sung: Listen, my daughter! Look and listen; forget your people and your family; let the king be captivated by your beauty! He is your Lord, bow down before him. What a beautiful song of love is this psalm of David, which extols the fairest of men and beholds the king’s daughter as the chosen one of his heart: Majestic, the king’s daughter is within, in a robe embroidered with gold. Adorned in a thousand colours, she is led to the king; these maidens have left everything for the king’s sake and in return they receive this promise: your sons will succeed your fathers, you shall make them princes throughout the land; they know they will not be barren, they will be filled with joy through their fruitfulness.
Dear Missionaries of Charity, dear brides of the King of kings, how majestic you are in your humility and poverty, for God’s call has given you Love as your only wealth—the Love of Jesus’ thirsting Heart. Just as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; remain in my love; you have heard this word deep within your hearts and you have believed it. Faith in Love has become your passion, your identity card as a citizen of the Kingdom, your passport to all the frontiers of this world. Through your faith in Love, you are welcomed as brides into the royal palace to reign with the Bridegroom who became obedient unto death, even death on a cross, who became poor so that we might be enriched by his poverty.
Today, you definitively confirm your ‘yes’ to the One who has chosen you to dwell with him in His Love and to draw into this dwelling the poorest of the poor. Like your mother, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, you have heard the call of Jesus, thirsting for love and for souls, and you wish to refuse him nothing. His thirst for love resounds every day in your heart as His bride, and you wish only to quench His thirst by loving and helping the poorest of the poor. These are the terms of your marriage to the King of kings.
So, my dear sisters, how will you manage to fulfil such a vocation and such a mission? This is not some trivial romantic adventure, or a trial marriage, so to speak; it is a great leap across the abyss of your own smallness. Be mindful once again of the challenge of such a vocation and of the resources needed to succeed in this adventure of love in the service of the poor. Our first contact informed me that amongst the group of 12 you form, there is one Brazilian, three Indians, one Frenchwoman, one Lebanese woman, one Polish woman, two from Kenya, one from the Philippines and one from Rwanda. Four continents are represented today in the celebration of a charism whose universality is well established. But beyond these sociological details, tell us how you came to be here at this moment in your personal and communal history? Your cultural roots and your family certainly played a role in preparing you for your vocation, but the decisive factor came from elsewhere and from above—in short, from Grace. The Eternal Father has set his gaze upon you, out of pure, unmerited love and mercy. He has beckoned to you through Jesus, the crucified Jesus, whose final words of love you cannot forget. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; remain in my love. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you so that you might go forth, bear fruit and that your fruit might remain.
You have been led this far by grace; you rely on grace for the future and on the power of prayer, not on your own strength; that is why you press on with confidence towards the Kingdom where the fruits of charity are gathered. At the end of our lives we shall be judged on love, writes Saint John of the Cross, paraphrasing the Gospel of Matthew 25. Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me; and whatever you did not do for the poorest, you did not do for me. At the judgement, we shall weep above all for our omissions, for all the good we failed to do. Given our indifference, our negligence and our sinful passions, there is cause for concern. But there, we shall be helped by the Missionaries of Charity, who will have built up a store of good works and who will generously help us to pass the test.
Fortunately, the Missionaries of Charity run ahead of us; they are swift and very alert, for their absolute poverty makes them light; their chaste relationships with everyone prevent them from lingering on the road with dubious affections; the detachment from their own will makes them flexible and available for any mission and any change of address, culture or environment. What freedom the evangelical life of virginity, poverty and obedience gives them! How relieved they are of so many worries, so that they may think only of the one thing necessary: the Love of the Poorest of the poor!
Jesus set his gaze upon each of them, and without a word they understood that He desired their exclusive and definitive love. Today they renew their ‘yes’ once and for all! A ‘yes’ overflowing with joy, which is pure folly in the eyes of the world. A ‘yes’, however, that commands respect, even from non-believers, for it makes a difference to so many poor people who populate the streets of our great cities. In all these poor people, they will love the Poor One par excellence, the Crucified One living within them and begging for our love. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.
Dear Missionaries of Charity, thank you for leading the way in the race towards the Kingdom and for drawing us in the footsteps of the Bridegroom of your love. We are counting on you because we know that you will not hoard merits for yourselves but will distribute them to all who come, like little Thérèse, the great inspiration to your mother, who wanted to enter heaven empty-handed, having given everything to the poorest. Your mother Teresa distinguished herself in this regard through a kind of extravagance; she gave so much of everything that she no longer felt any joy in her union with God. Everything was distributed from on high to the poorest of the poor, without her realising it, leaving her feeling utterly empty and wretched, like the Crucified One whom she had espoused. The nuptial mystery of your mother, in the night of faith, is not to be imitated or aspired to, for it is the King’s secret to reserve for each and every one their own form and measure of love.
Dear sisters in Christ, dear Missionaries of Charity, your witness moves us and urges us to love more. Pray for us, keep your joy infectious, for it is joy that heralds the Kingdom already present among us here on earth. Our Eucharist already shares in the wedding feast of the Lamb that we shall celebrate in fullness in heaven; we celebrate it now with one heart alongside Mary Immaculate, Mother of the Church and our mother, who ever accompanies the Offering of her divine Son and who protects us on the path to the Kingdom. Our joy is great today, for the Bridegroom pours out upon us in abundance the new wine of the Spirit because of the marvellous offering of his brides. Blessed be He!
Oh yes, you are majestic, in robes embroidered with gold, adorned with a thousand colours, advancing joyfully towards the King of kings and the Lord of lords! Thanks be to the Father through the Son of his Love in the Spirit of truth, to the praise and glory of his grace. Amen!
