(Rivista Internazionale - December 1998: Message of H.M.E.H. the Prince and Grand Master - 1/1)

Tenth Anniversary of the Election of the Grand Master

Message of H.M.E.H. the Prince and Grand Master

Valletta. Malta. H.M.E.H. the Prince and Grand Master, Fra’ Andrew Bertie, during the solemn Holy mass celebrated in the Co-Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in occasion of the world gathering of the knights of Malta, on 5 December.

It is ten years since Divine Providence made me responsible for the family that now has nine centuries of history. It is not for me to judge these years during which, with the help of the Blessed Virgin of Philermos and our Holy Patron St. John the Baptist, I have faithfully followed the path indicated by my Venerated Predecessor, Fra’ Angelo de Mojana, pledging to achieve those goals which he had set.
Today other opportunities await us, other objectives have appeared along our way, always under the banner of our fundamental principles of Tuitio Fidei and Obsequium Pauperum. Principles which we also intend to confirm, and which I invite everyone to apply, for the two great events now almost upon us: the Ninth Centenary of our Order in 1999 and the Great Jubilee of 2000 with which the Universal Church, by the desire of its Supreme Pontiff, intends to prepare us all for the advent of the Third Millennium.
For our Ninth Centenary, fraternal assemblies and numerous religious ceremonies have been held and many are still planned. My recommendation is that they be carried out always, wherever in the world they take place, following the spirit and letter of our Order’s principles: for the edification of individual confreres and for the spiritual progress of all their communities, conscious of and responsible for the values for which we all gave our vows - our faith and charity towards others.
It is of fundamental importance that we, in our centenary year, do all we can everywhere to defend the faith, which is much more threatened today than it seems, almost on the same level which induced our first Knights to take up arms to prevent it being overcome.
The Angel of Darkness is taking on the semblance of the Angel of Light in a much more ambiguous manner than in the past. Never has truth been so subtly misrepresented instead of being openly combated. Even where Christian faith is strong, the ideas of false prophets are taking hold - those pseudo mystical sects in whose shadows are hidden, besides the betrayal of truth, lucre, the suffocation of the individual and, in many cases, even corruption to the detriment of individuals and communities. It is our precise duty as Christians and Knights to fight these falsities which often become authentic aberrations. Our Jubilee Year should induce us staunchly to fulfil this duty: with the vigorous announcement of the error and of those who spread it. We must take clear stances, especially in public occasions, armed with the courage of the first Crusaders from whom we are descended, armed with a strong faith. A faith which, as events become stormier and enemies fiercer, must be even readier to face this endeavour, albeit aware of the difficulties ahead.
Without forgetting that one way of combating these errors is by unmasking those who take advantage of our name and our banners, not for the common good and Christian ideals which have been our foundation for nine centuries, but only for personal profit. In this way they wreak twofold damage: against those who, deluding themselves, have followed them, thwarting any possible spiritual progress (our first aim), and against our Order itself, when intentional misunderstanding and cleverly constructed confusion makes it more difficult for us to accomplish our institutional aims; an Order, which many, if their good faith had not been exploited, would have been happy to join.
It is just as fundamental, therefore, that in our Ninth Centenary our fraternal participation be intensified in favour of those who, all over the world, belong to the large and unfortunately growing class of the poor: that is, not only the destitute, without anything, the naked and hungry of whom the Gospels speak, but the many victims of wars and natural disasters. We must be near to them always and everywhere. I will be with you, but you must be with me; where there is suffering, where there is need and where - another pillar of our Order - there is sickness. In Malta in December, during the first of our fraternal meetings, we talked also of this, studying the ways and means for being close to these «new poor» of which these unhappy years are sadly full. We must not leave anything to chance in our actions to help them, both where the many wars are bathing our epoch in blood, and where war has been waged by nature itself, with floods, earthquakes, and all kinds of disasters and calamities.
The «poor»: together with the defence of the faith, this is the thought I exhort you to have in your hearts as a preparation for our Jubilee Year which must also constitute, with the same principles, the preparation for the Jubilee of 2000. But we must also pass from this thought to action, each of you taking direct operational responsibilities according to the lines which we began to study together during the world gathering in Malta from 4 to 8 December and in harmony with the recent reforms of our Order, which is girding itself for the commitment of the Third Christian Millennium.

Fra’ Andrew Bertie

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