CONCLUSION AND VISION

⁵⁴³The founding of the Order of St. John in 1099 represents—as I attempted to describe above—a remarkable event in the history of religious orders. It was not only the birth of one of the many orders, but of the Church's first hospitaller order. It set spiritual standards that continue to shape the life of the Church to this day. The spirituality culminating in hospitality was the fundamental spiritual innovation that the Order of St. John introduced into the history of religious orders . Rooted in faith, it was and remains the driving force of the Order. Although the transformation into a military order, which assumed military and sovereign duties and arose from the spirit of protecting pilgrims and the idea of the "militia Christi" (service of Christ), began under its second superior, Raymond de Puy, and made the Order appear more as a military force than a hospitaller order in its turbulent history, it never forgot its primary mission: hospitality. (See: https://youtu.be/D5ltg57y6eM )

⁵⁴⁴When the Maltese cross, the symbol of the eight Beatitudes from Christ's Sermon on the Mount, bears eloquent witness in refugee camps and hospitals, in medical research centres and ambulances, in civil defense and rehabilitation facilities, in hospital trains for pilgrimages to the sick and in training centres for nursing staff, in hospices and orphanages, that the Order of Malta puts its timeless motto "Protection of the Faith and Service to the Poor" into practice in contemporary works of Christian charity, we are reminded of the words of the Order's founder, Blessed Gérard:

“Our brotherhood will be everlasting,
because the soil in which this plant is rooted is the misery of the world – and because, God willing, there will always be people who want to dedicate themselves to alleviating this suffering and making this misery more bearable.”

May the Order of St. John, on the basis of its spiritual foundation, humbly serve the hungry and thirsty, the alienated and naked, the sick and imprisoned of the Lord in all future times, and thus become a sign of Christian faith, joyful hope and apostolic love for humanity.