Vatican City, Nov 8, 2004 / 22:00 pm
Pope John Paul II, receiving bishops this morning from the Episcopal Conference of the Indian Ocean (CEDOI), invited "Christian people to live the just-begun Year of the Eucharist as an intense time of encounters with Christ," and stressed the need for well formed priests and laity, and the “harmonious development” of families.
The Pope emphasized that an "authentic spiritual communion" between the bishops is necessary due to "the diversity of human and religious situations of your region" and "also the great distances that separate your dioceses."
CEDOI is composed of one Islamic republic (the Comoros Islands), two Commonwealth republics (Seychelles and Mauritius), an overseas French department which is also an ultra-peripheral region of Europe (La Reunion) and a French territorial community (the island of Mayotte).
The Year of the Eucharist, said the Holy Father, is a time to "discover in this incomparable treasure that Jesus left us the joy and goodness of the loving presence of the Savior" and a time to "rediscover the meaning of Sunday and the need to make it holy, notably by regular participation in Sunday Mass."