Pope speaks to Catholic fraternity

We reproduce the address given by the Holy Father to the Catholic Fraternity (of which the Community is a part) on the occasion of the 16th International Conference. It is an interesting read that stimulates deep reflection on the Renewal as a whole. Happy reading!

Paul VI Hall, Friday, October 31, 2014

Dear brothers and sisters, welcome.

I thank you for your welcome and greet everyone with affection. I know that the Catholic Fraternity has already held the meeting with the executive and the council and that this afternoon you will begin the 16th international conference with dear Fr. Raniero.
You have been kind enough to send me the program and I see that each meeting begins with the address I gave to the Charismatic Renewal at the meeting at the Olympic Stadium last June.
I want first of all to congratulate you because you have begun what was at that time a desire. For about two months now, theCatholic Fraternity and the ICCRS have already started working by sharing the same office in the San Calisto Palace, inside “Noah’s Ark.” I am aware that it must not have been easy to make this decision, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this witness of unity, of the current of Grace, that you are giving to the whole world.
I would like to elaborate on a few issues that I think are important.

Unity in diversity. Uniformity is not Catholic, it is not Christian. Unity in diversity. Catholic unity is diverse but it is one. It is curious! The same one who does diversity is the same one who then does unity: the Holy Spirit. He does the two things: unity in diversity. Unity is not uniformity, it is not compulsorily doing everything together, nor thinking the same way, nor losing identity. Unity in diversity is precisely the opposite, it is recognizing and joyfully accepting the different gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to each person and putting them at the service of all in the Church.

Today in the Gospel passage we read in the Mass, there was this uniformity of those men attached to the letter, “You must not do this…,” to such an extent that the Lord had to ask, “But, tell me, can you do good on the Sabbath or can you not?” This is the danger of uniformity. Unity is being able to listen, accept differences, have the freedom to think differently and manifest it! With all respect for the other who is my brother. Do not be afraid of Differences! As I said in the Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, “The model is not the sphere, which is not superior to the parts, where every point is equidistant from the center and there are no differences between one point and another. The model is the polyhedron, which reflects the confluence of all the partialities which in it retain their originality” (236), but make unity.
I saw in the booklet, where there are the names of the Communities, that the phrase you chose to put at the beginning is the one that says, “…share with everyone in the Church the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.” The Church needs the Holy Spirit, we would miss it! Every Christian, in his or her life, needs to open his or her heart to the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, promised by the Father, is the One who reveals Jesus Christ to us, who gives us the ability to say, Jesus! Without the Spirit we cannot say it. He reveals Jesus Christ, leads us to a personal encounter with Him, and thus changes our lives. A question: Are you living this experience? Share it! And to share it, you have to live it, be a witness to it!
The theme you have chosen for the Congress is “Praise and Adoration for a New Evangelization.” This will be discussed by Fr. Raniero, master of prayer.

Praise is the inspiration that gives us life, because it is intimacy with God, which grows with praise every day. Some time ago I heard this example that seems very appropriate: breathing for the human being. Breathing consists of two phases: inhaling, that is, putting in air, and exhaling, letting it out. Spiritual life is nourished, nourished in prayer and manifested in mission: inhaling, prayer, and exhaling. When we inhale, in prayer, we receive the new air of the Spirit, and in exhaling we proclaim Jesus Christ raised by the same Spirit.
No one can live without breathing. The same is true for the Christian: without praise and without mission he does not live as a Christian. And with praise, worship. There is little talk about worship. “What do you do in prayer?” – “I ask God for things, I give thanks, intercession is done…” Adoration, worshiping God. This is part of breathing: praise and worship.

It was the Charismatic Renewal that reminded the Church of the need and importance of praise prayer. When we talk about praise prayer in the Church, charismatics come to mind. When I spoke about the prayer of praise during a Mass at Santa Marta I said that it is not only the prayer of charismatics but of the whole Church! It is the recognition of God’s lordship over us and over all creation expressed in dance, music and song.
I would now like to take some passages from that homily: “The prayer of praise is a Christian prayer for all of us. In the Mass, every day, when we sing repeating ‘Holy, Holy, Holy…,’ this is a prayer of praise, we praise God for his greatness because he is great. And we say good things to him, because we like it that way… The prayer of praise makes us fruitful. Sarah danced in the great moment of her fruitfulness at the age of ninety! Fruitfulness gives praise to the Lord. The man or woman who praises the Lord, who prays praising the Lord-and when they do they are happy to say it-and rejoice when they sing the Sanctus in the Mass is a fruitful man or woman. Let us think how good it is to do the prayers of praise. This must be our prayer of praise, and when we raise it to the Lord, we must say to our heart, ‘Arise, heart, for you stand before the King of glory'” (Mass at Santa Marta, Jan. 28, 2014).
Along with the prayer of praise, the intercessory prayer today is a cry to the Father for our persecuted and murdered Christian brothers and sisters and for peace in our troubled world.

Always praise the Lord, don’t stop doing it, praise Him more and more, unceasingly. I have been told about prayer groups of the Charismatic Renewal in which the Rosary is prayed together. Prayer to Our Lady must never be lacking, never! But when you gather together, praise the Lord!

I see among you a dear friend, Pastor John Traettino, whom I visited a short time ago. Catholic Fraternity, do not forget your origins, do not forget that the Charismatic Renewal is by its very nature ecumenical. On this subject, Blessed Paul VI, in his magnificent and very timely Exhortation on Evangelization, says: “…the force of evangelization will be greatly diminished if those who proclaim the gospel are divided among themselves by so many kinds of ruptures. Would not one of the great ills of evangelization today lie here? The Lord’s spiritual testament tells us that unity among his followers is not only proof that we are his, but also that he is the Father’s envoy, the criterion of credibility of Christians and of Christ himself. Yes, the fate of evangelization is certainly linked to the witness of unity given by the Church. This is a reason for responsibility but also for comfort” (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 77). Up to here, Blessed Paul VI.

Spiritual ecumenism, praying together and proclaiming together that Jesus is Lord and intervening together to help the poor, in all their poverty. This must be done and not forget that today the blood of Jesus, shed by his many Christian martyrs in various parts of the world, challenges us and urges us to unity. For the persecutors, we are not divided, we are not Lutherans, Orthodox, Evangelicals, Catholics — no! We are one! For the persecutors, we are Christians! Nothing else matters. This is the Ecumenism of blood being lived today.

Remember: seek the unity that is the work of the Holy Spirit and do not fear diversity. The breathing of the Christian who lets in the ever new air of the Holy Spirit and exhales it into the world. Prayer of praise and mission. Share the Baptism in the Holy Spirit with anyone in the Church. Spiritual ecumenism and blood ecumenism. Unity of the Body of Christ. Preparing the Bride for the coming Bridegroom! One Bride! All. (Rev. 22:17)

Finally, a special mention, in addition to my thanks, goes to these young musicians from the north of Brazil who played at the beginning, I hope they will continue to play a little. They received me with so much affection with the song “Live Jesus the Lord.” I know they have prepared something more and I invite you all to listen to them before saying goodbye. Thank you.