Church, home and school of communion

This morning, Feb. 27, in the Sala Clementina of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father received in audience the bishops who are friends of the Focolare Movement, who have held a meeting during recent days on the theme of “Mutual love among Christ's disciples.” Among them was Bishop Michael Mulvey of the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

The pope said that as bishops, they are “called upon to bring to these meetings the broad range of the Church, and to ensure that all they receive is put to the benefit of the entire Church.”

“Today's society has a great need for the testimony of a style of life, from which their transpires the novelty offered to us by Lord Jesus: brothers who care for each other in spite of their differences of character, origins or age,” he said. “This testimony gives rise to the wish to be involved in the great trajectory of communion that is the Church.”

In conclusion, Pope Francis recalled the words of Blessed John Paul II in the Apostolic Letter “Novo Millennio Ineunte”: “'To make the Church the home and the school of communion is truly fundamental for the efficacy of every commitment to evangelisation, inasmuch as it reveals the deepest yearning of the Father: that all his sons live as brothers; and it reveals the will of Christ, 'that all of them may be one'; and it reveals the dynamism of the Holy Spirit, its free and liberating force of attraction,” the pope said. “Cultivating the spirituality of communion also contributes to making us more able to walk the path of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue.”