Activity Report 2010 - Sovereign Military Order of Malta in the United ...

A thousand
years of faith
The pilgrimage is the
outward sign of the living
faith.
A
ll the actions of the Order
are a testimony of its
Christian faith. The motivation
for this care, now
almost a thousand years
in practice, is the journey
towards God. The Grand Commander,
who is responsible for the religious life
of the Order, emphasises the importance
of the formation process for this
journey as a pilgrim’s progress: the
demonstration of this care for the poor
and the sick is seen through the many
pilgrimages members of the Order
make every year:
‘To act consistently as Christians and as
Knights and Dames of Malta we are
committed to being more and more
deeply rooted in Christ and in the spirituality
of the Order, with training
receiving great attention, to guarantee
to our centuries-old Christian tradition
the future it deserves.
And simply to be charity in the Lord,
we can operate as Knights and Dames
of the Order. Let us look at an example:
if I go into a monastery with a thousandyear
old tradition, I am immediately
aware of an atmosphere that is
decidedly different from that which one
finds in a more recent community - thus
simply to say that our tradition has
given, and gives, life to that which we
define as ‘the Order’. It is a question of
refinement of spirit, which illuminates
through its external actions and its
internal conviction to serve the most
neglected in society – a service which
recalls the humility of Christ’s action in
washing the feet of His disciples: a
supreme sign of a love that instructs,
that nothing is of its own but that all is
shared and communicated, and to which
the members of our Order are called to
conform, embracing in a way that is
exemplary and unique: ‘As I have done
to you, do unto others in like manner.’
It is not an exaggeration to say that he
or she who enters, or is already part of
our Order, is convinced that responding
in this way to a precise vocation by living
the Christian faith and caring for the
needy, is the hinge of one’s own
spiritual life and mission in the world.’
The Grand Commander, Fra’ Gherardo Hercolani Fava Simonetti
16
SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA