Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “The late John Paul II … gave you this consignment: «Go into the whole world carrying the truth, beauty and peace encountered in Christ our Redeemer». Don Giussani made these words the programme of the Communion and Liberation Movement and this was the beginning of missionary season which led you to eighty countries. Today I urge you to continue on this path, with profound personalised faith, deeply rooted in the Church the living Body of Christ.” This was the consignment Pope Benedict XVI gave to over 80,000 participants in a pilgrimage promoted by Communion and Liberation Movement to mark 25th anniversary of papal approval in St Peter’s Square on 24 March.
Recalling first of all the founder Mgr. Luigi Giussani “a true friend and of whom I have many fond memories”, said the Pope “through him the Holy Spirit gave rise to a Movement in the Church … to bear witness to the beauty of being a Christian in an epoch when there was a spreading opinion that Christianity was arduous and oppressing to live. Don Giussani strove to instil in young people a love for Christ "the Way, Truth and Life", repeating that He alone is the path towards the fulfilment of the deepest dreams of the human heart and that Christ saves us not despite our humanity but rather through our humanity”.
This courageous priest “sought Beauty itself, the infinite Beauty found only in Christ” and, as John Paul II said, “the original pedagogical intuition of Communion and Liberation lies in proposing in an attractive manner in keeping with present day culture the Christian event as a source of new values, an orientation for life.” The vast and articulated spiritual family of Communion and Liberation originated in a “new encounter with Christ” which still today “offers an opportunity to live the Christian faith deeply and in a modern way, on the one hand in total fidelity and communion with the Successor of Peter and the Bishops who govern the Church; on the other with spontaneity and freedom which allow new prophetic apostolic and missionary initiatives”.
The Fraternity of Communion and Liberation is part of a rich flourishing of associations, movements and new church realities prompted by the Holy Sprit in the Church since Vatican II, a “sign of the fecundity of the Lord’s Spirit, and to make visible in the world the victory of the Risen Christ and continue the missionary mandate entrusted to the whole Church”. Pope Benedict XVI repeated a call he made at a recent meeting with the Roman clergy, “not to suppress charismas … if the Lord gives us new gifts we must be grateful for them even if they are uncomfortable. At the same time since the Church is One, if Movements are truly gifts of the Holy Spirit they must naturally insert themselves in the ecclesial Community and serve it in patient dialogue with the Bishops and be edifying elements for the Church of today and tomorrow.” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 26/3/2007 - righe 37, parole 535)
