“A ROBUST SPIRITUALITY OF COMMUNION”

The best introduction to our current edition of Being One, which is dedicated to the theme of the spirituality of unity as a collective spirituality, is the talk given by the Pope to a group of Cardinals and Bishops who are friends of the Focolare Movement. It was given on the 16th. February last. He firstly greeted and thanked Chiara Lubich, the foundress of the Focolare Movement who was present at the audience, and he also spoke briefly about Bishop Klaus Hemmerle who until his untimely death was the organiser of these meetings for the bishops. The Pope then continued as follows:

"We thank the Lord that a large group of Pastors, coming from so many different countries wanting to strengthen both their effective and affective collegiality, can live a moment of deep union with the successor of Peter. This contributes to showing in its true light the relationship between the fraternal and the hierarchical dimensions of the college of Bishops.

A communitarian or collective spirituality (...) has lead you to deepen an essential aspect of the Christian vocation. The Lord Jesus, in fact, did not call the disciples to an individual following, but to one which is inseparably personal and communitarian. If this is true for all the baptised, it is true in particular for those whom He has chosen “to be with Him and to be sent out to preach” ( Mk. 3:14-15 ), that is, for the Apostles and their successors, the Bishops.

The Church, icon of the Holy Trinity, is a mystery of communion and sacrament of unity ( cf. Lumen Gentium, 1). The communion between its members is the primary and principal sign which it offers so that the world may believe in Christ (cf. Jn. 17:21). To be one in Christ is, so to speak, the first and permanent form of evangelisation put into practice by the Christian community.

Today we need a new evangelisation. There is a need, therefore, to respond with particular ardour and urgency to the original personal and ecclesial vocation: to form, in Christ, “one heart and one soul” (Acts 4:32). A renewed proclamation of the Gospel cannot be efficacious and coherent if it is not accompanied by a robust spirituality of communion, cultivated in prayer, asceticism and in the web of daily relationships.

All of this takes on much more significance in the light of the Jubilee for the year 2000. The preparation of this event began - as I wrote in the Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio adveniente - with the Second Vatican Council And also these meetings of yours, which are inspired by the conciliar ecclessiology, make a contribution towards preparing for “that new springtime of Christian life which should flourish with the great Jubilee if Christians are docile to the action of the Holy Spirit” (ibid.).

By deepening the spirituality of unity especially, you are preparing yourselves well so to co-operate with the Holy Spirit, the divine leaven of unity of the People of God and of the whole of humanity”.

Pope John Paul II