...faithful to its vocation....

The flock has grown in size, and the small sign it constitutes has assumed, over the years, a visibility of which the community often feels unworthy. The community often feels “overexposed”, especially within the church. It is aware that the flock, in order to remain faithful to its vocation and continue toward the promised kingdom, must remain “small”, that is, always conscious of being nothing more than a community of sinners who receive forgiveness from God to the extent to which they recognize their own sin and their own smallness. The community knows that the flock can be led together to salvation only through its trust in the one Shepherd. Even though it sometimes finds itself the object of criticism, distrust or malevolence, even on the part of friends, it continually examines itself not on the basis of the approval or disapproval it receives from others, but on the basis of the quality and authenticity of its own sequela Christi.