“Don’t be tempted by tales of catastrophes or prophecies of disasters, because what really matters is persevering while preventing love from going cold and keeping your head high and lifted to the Lord, because the Church is not ours, it is God’s Church!”. This is the Pope’s warning to the newly-appointed bishops he received in audience today. “He was there before us and He will be there after us!”, he went on: “The fate of the Church, of the small flock, is triumphantly hidden in the Cross of God’s Son. Our names are engraved into His heart; our fate is in His hands”. “Do not waste your best energies into counting failures or begrudging disappointments, thus letting your hearts grow smaller and your horizons shrink”, Francis ordered: “May Christ be your joy, may the Gospel be your nourishment. Keep your eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ only, and, by getting used to His light, be able to incessantly look for it, even where it changes direction, even if in humble glares. There, in the families of your communities, where, in stubborn patience and anonymous generosity, the gift of life is cherished and nurtured. There, where the fragile but indestructible certainty that the truth will prevail, that loving is not useless, that forgiveness has the power to change and reconcile people, that unity always wins over division, that the courage to forget oneself for other people’s good is more rewarding than the intangible primacy of the self, stays on in people’s hearts. There, where many consecrated persons and God’s ministers, in silent self-dedication, persevere, regardless of the fact that often goodness makes no noise, that it is not a subject for blogs and it does not make the headlines. They keep believing and bravely preaching the Gospel of grace and mercy to men who are longing for reasons to live, to hope and to love. They are not scared by the wounds in Christ’s flesh, always inflicted by sin and, not unusually, by the children of the Church”.