1 "As I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love" (Jn 15:10).

The Acts of the Apostles remind us today of the choice of the Apostle Matthias appointed to fill the post left vacant following the betrayal and death of Judas. The Church celebrates Saint Matthias, included in the group of the Twelve with this election, shortly after the departure of Christ Jesus. This is a very significant event. Following the tradition of the old covenant, in which God bound Himself to the twelve tribes of Israel, Christ called twelve apostles. After the ascension, the early Apostolic Church considered it its duty to re-establish this number that had been so prominent and sanctified in the divine economy.

And the election designated a man who, like the other apostles, had been a "witness to the resurrection of Christ". This is the essential condition. Matthias witnessed how Jesus "kept the commandments of the Father and abided in his love" (cf. Jn 15:10). Now he will testify that, in response, the Father glorified Jesus by raising him.

2 In every age, the successors of the apostles and missionaries have gone forth to bring this testimony of Christ to new places, to other peoples. Here with you it is from the 4th century that Saint Servatius came to establish the Church in Maastricht and throughout your region. And how can we fail to recall here St Willibrord, an ardent pastor who proclaimed the Good News, who baptised thousands of men and women who thus discovered the gift of faith and entered the Christian community! And yet you venerate many bishops for their holiness; and it is a whole people with consecrated men and women who have formed in this diocese a rich religious tradition, attested by the building of many places of prayer and imprinted throughout your culture.

Today, dear brothers and sisters, it is with joy that I meet in you the Church established here for sixteen centuries to profess Christ, he who "faithfully kept the commandments of the Father and abided in his love". I am happy to greet my brother in the episcopate, Monsignor Johannes Baptist Gijsen, pastor of this diocese of Roermond. My cordial greetings also go to your auxiliary, the priests, the men and women religious, the members of the secular institutes, the seminarians of Rolduc, the lay adults and young people; I know that they all strive to participate actively in the life of the diocese. I also greet those who have come from other dioceses and also from other countries: Germany and Belgium.

3 We have heard the words of Jesus at the vigil of his passion: "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love" (Jn 15:10). What are these commandments?

First of all, the commandment of brotherly love: Christ wishes that, by observing his commandment, by loving one another as he loves them, his disciples may be closely united with one another and at the same time united with his Father. This is my deepest wish for all the communities of the Church in the Netherlands: in your parishes, in the many institutions where you are involved, may you find in the word of Christ the inspiration of your action and the meaning of your common life. There is no other model or other support for the Church than the one who "loved us as the Father loved him".

All of you who are concerned with proclaiming the Gospel and building up the Church, you who gather in prayer, you who perform all the tasks related to the education of the young, you who serve the sick and the poorest of our brothers and sisters, you who commit yourselves to the necessary solidarity with people beyond all borders, lend a hand: Together you continue the community founded by Christ, formed around the apostolic ministry, united by the love of the Father, called to live the same life of God into which the Redeemer introduces us: "As the Father has loved me, so I also have loved you. Abide in my love" (John 15, 9). "I have chosen you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide" (Jn 15:16).

4 Christ called, first of all, the Twelve to share the love that he lives fully in the communion of Father, Son and Spirit. They were to form the centre of the new community, the community of divine life in the midst of men. And it has been from this model that the Church has been built up through the centuries.

Today, Christ calls us, in imitation of him, to open our lives to others with the gift of ourselves and thus to know the happiness of fruitful generosity. Not only does it reveal to us the marvellous mystery of the Trinity and the uninterrupted exchange of love between the divine persons, but it also invites us to live the same exchange in our turn, where forgetting oneself leads to giving everything to the other, where one does not keep the life received from God for one's own exclusive benefit, but offers it to the Lord by sharing one's many gifts with one's neighbour.

The first place, where God's life of love is shared, is the family. The family, in which one is brought into the world, in which one commits one's life to one another, to one another, is the first place where love created in the image of God can make alive its likeness to the Creator. It is true that in our times the situation of the family knows many contradictions. It is discredited by some who reject what they consider its constructions; but it is appreciated by many others who spontaneously see in it the true place of happiness, as surveys show.

Certainly all families have their limitations and fall short of their high calling. But we know what wounds those who are deprived of what the family environment naturally brings to their development as children, as adolescents, as men and women. For her part, the Church is so aware of this that she never ceases to remind us of the importance of solid family building, the indissoluble character of the commitment that is the foundation of marriage, the nobility of love expressed in the language of body and spirit.

Everyone knows to what extent the Second Vatican Council, in the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes, and Pope Paul VI, particularly in the encyclical Humanae vitae, extolled the place of the family in society, the greatness of the institution of marriage, of responsible fatherhood and motherhood, and specified the requirements of a correct ethic based on Christian tradition. In 1980, the Synod of Bishops continued its reflection on this point, culminating in the apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio.

5 Let me simply say again to the families of the Netherlands how great is their role in the development of each person. The vocation of the human person is to love and be loved. And it is to highlight this vocation that we must always return to the word of Christ and the apostles who reveal to us the inexhaustible source of love, which is the very life of God. It is in the bosom of a united and stable family that the discovery is first made. This is where one is received unconditionally without having to justify one's presence. Moreover, the more fragile and vulnerable one is, the more secure one is in the tenderness of others. It is here that one learns to exist. It is here that one progressively builds one's personality. It is here, again, that we discover that we are not at the centre of the world; we get to know different people in depth in a mutual enrichment. One learns to be loved, to love the other, to love oneself. There one also makes the discovery of trial, conflict and suffering; the family is then the place where love can go so far as to 'give one's life' for those one loves, according to the very words of Jesus, and thus to support the one who goes through the storm, to heal wounds, to know what joy gives a necessary self-mastery for a good relationship with the other, and what happiness comes from a reconciliation in truth.

6 Enriched by his family experience, man can better fulfil his role in society. In this regard, I would like to quote the words of the exhortation Familiaris consortio: "Relations between the members of the family community are inspired and guided by the law of 'gratuitousness' which, respecting and fostering in each and every person personal dignity as the only title of value, becomes cordial welcome, encounter and dialogue, disinterested availability, generous service, profound solidarity. Thus the promotion of an authentic and mature communion of persons in the family becomes the first and irreplaceable school of sociality' (John Paul II, Familiaris consortio, 43). The family is the place where one prepares oneself to face life's difficulties, to not resign oneself to ease or break-ups, to give up fighting human misery. It is in the family that one acquires the personal freedom and discernment that allow one not to be at the mercy of social pressures, sometimes harmful. Thanks to the maturity developed in the family environment, one can make a positive contribution to the human and Christian history of society.

7 Finally, how can we not remember that the Second Vatican Council described the family as 'a domestic sanctuary of the Church' (Apostolicam actuositatem, 11)? It means that the Church is present in the life of the family that knows the friendship of Christ and receives his word: "You are my friends if you do what I command you ... but I have called you friends" (Jn 15:14.15). It means to say that the small family community participates in the life of the large ecclesial community, especially in the celebration of the sacraments; and all this is manifested especially in the Sunday Eucharist. It also means that the family's mission, particularly its educational mission, is like a true ministry through which the Gospel is transmitted and spread, to such an extent that family life as a whole becomes a path to faith, to Christian initiation, to life following Christ. In the family aware of such a gift, as Paul VI wrote: 'all members evangelise and are evangelised' (Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 71). For these reasons I rejoice with you for having created, in this diocese, a Family Pastoral Centre that will not fail to bear much fruit. It is in the family that the various vocations of young Christians can be born and die, and particularly vocations to priestly service or religious life; you know this, in a country such as yours that has sent so many missionaries on the roads of the world, and where priests have been numerous in the still recent past. In the face of today's challenges, may God enable the families of the Netherlands to see their children answer the Lord's call and consecrate their lives to his service!

8 Dear brothers and sisters, I know that it is often a heavy task for your families to ensure each other's development, to fulfil their role in social life, to be the support point for the life of the Church. In every country, the public authorities have a role to play in defending and supporting the institution of the family. If the family is prevented from developing normally or if too many concessions are made to anything that harms it, the difficulty becomes too great. I hope that family policy, in your country, as in all of Europe, will respect and favour more the fundamental reality that, in society, is the family.

9 At the end of our meditation on the fulfilment of our mission in the Church and in the Christian family, let us turn together to the Mother of Christ. She is also the Mother of the Church. Your diocese of Roermond has chosen her as patroness with the title 'Immaculate Conception'. Many shrines are dedicated to her in this area and you go there to pray.

O Mary, you who lived in the intimacy of the Father, the Son and the Spirit, you who gave flesh to the Word of God, you who had the experience of family life in Nazareth, you who participated with the apostles in the birth of the new people of God, remain with us! Stay with us, to educate us in true love in all the communities to which we belong! May they be places of life and truth, of charity and peace, of courage and hope!

O Mary, remain close to this people whom I visit today! I entrust it to your motherly heart. O Mary, help the Christians of the Netherlands to be witnesses of the resurrection today like the apostles of your Son. Help them to preserve and continue the work of evangelisation begun by Saint Servatius. Keep their hearts ready in expectation of the Master's return, that he may find them faithful to the Gospel he has given them! Help them to live in the unity in which the disciples of your Son are recognised! And may they, following your example, keep in their hearts the words of Jesus: 'Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love' (Jn 15:9-10).

[Pope John Paul II, homily in Maastricht 14 May 1985]