.- During
his weekly general audience, held earlier today in St. Peter’s Square,
Pope Benedict XVI said that the ultimate aim of the Gospel is communion
with God himself, and through it, true communion with the rest of
mankind. He stressed the importance of this message at a time when
fragmentations and strife between peoples run extraordinarily high
worldwide.
More than 40,000
people were on hand to hear the Pope who continued today his
catechetical series on the relationship between Christ and the Church
in light of the experience of the Apostles and the task entrusted to
them.
Benedict began
by saying that "Through the apostolic ministry, the Church, the
community brought together by the Son of God, ... will live through the
ages, building and nourishing the communion in Christ and in the Spirit
to which everyone is called and in which everyone can experience the
salvation given by the Father.”
"Indeed,” he
said, “the twelve Apostles were careful to provide successors so that
the mission entrusted to them would continue after their death.”
Because of this,
he explained that “over the centuries the Church, organically
structured under the guidance of her legitimate pastors, has continued
to live in the world as a mystery of communion which in some way
reflects Trinitarian communion itself."
The Pope then
pointed out that "the idea of communion as participation in Trinitarian
life" is particularly highlighted in the Gospel of St. John, "where the
communion of love binding the Son to the Father and to mankind is at
the same time the model and source of the fraternal communion which
must unite disciples to one another."
He said that
"During their earthly pilgrimage [the] disciples, through their
communion with the Son, can already participate in His divine life and
in that of the Father. ... This life of communion, both with God and
among ourselves, is the ultimate aim of the announcement of the Good
News."
He called
communion “the fruit of the Holy Spirit,” which, he said, “is nourished
by the Eucharistic bread and expressed through fraternal relations, a
kind of anticipation of future glory.”
Benedict said
that communion “is the gift that lifts us out of our solitude and
brings us to participate in the love that unites us to God and with one
another.” He added that it “is easy to understand how great this gift
is if we only think of the fragmentation and conflicts afflicting
relations between individuals, groups and entire peoples."
Concluding, the
Holy Father said that "Communion truly is the good news that remedies
all forms of solitude, the precious gift that makes us feel welcomed
and loved in God, in the unity of His people gathered in the name of
the Trinity; it is the light that makes the Church shine out as a sign
raised among peoples."
Pope Benedict calls Church the link that brings true communion between God, mankind
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