Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As we prepare to live a new year of grace in the Lord, we still have in our eyes and hearts the days of Pope Francis’ visit to our country. How blessed we have been by this rare and important event! It is precisely so that his words – as well as his gestures – may descend deeply into our consciences and inform our pastoral and missionary choices that I propose not my own personal reflection, but to return to what the Successor of St Peter said to us on 2 September 2023. The speech he gave in our cathedral is a fundamental page of the Petrine Magisterium that we cannot let go of without returning to it carefully, intelligently and lovingly, to realise what he wanted to tell us and put it into practice, especially in this year that follows his apostolic journey to Ulaanbaatar. There are few particular Churches in the world that can enjoy such focused teaching and we therefore have the duty – and the joy – of making it the subject of our ordinary pastoral reflection.

I therefore propose some underlining, which you will find as headings at the side of the text, as if to facilitate reading according to the development of the internal themes. At the bottom of the text you will also find two key-questions that each parish and religious community is called upon to take into serious consideration, making them the subject of personal and communal moments of reflection, with moments of sharing specially reserved throughout the year. By doing so, we will have given due attention to what the Holy Father wanted to deliver to us, so that it might be an encouragement to continue on the path of the Church that he came to bless with his presence.

May the Virgin Mary, who has accompanied us in a special way in this year 2023 consecrated to her, be our true Mother and Sister, leading us to that ever deeper personal relationship with her Son Jesus. To her we entrust ourselves as individuals and as God’s people walking with joy and hope in the land of the Eternal Blue Sky.

Yours in Christ,