“In the past few days, returning from Rocca di Papa to Rome, I had a strange impression, one that I already felt when I came back from Ala di Stura. I felt that Rome was our home because the Pope was there.

Yesterday, traveling down from the Mariapolis Centre towards the Eternal City, Rome seemed to me to be covered by one great heart, the heart of the Pope.

In the past few days I’ve been reading some truly splendid words of the Pope. Last Wednesday while mentioning the feast day of St. Catherine at the General Audience he had this to say:  

‘Indeed, the Pope draws his strength from his love for his children, from the union of the ecclesiastical community, the charity of the faithful who under his guidance form a single heart and a single soul. This contribution of spiritual energy that comes from the Catholic people and reaches the hierarchy of the Church, from each individual Christian all the way to the Pope, makes us think of the Saint who the Church will honour tomorrow with a special feast, St. Catherine of Sienna, the humble, wise and fearless Dominican virgin who, as you all know, loved the Pope and the Church as no other was known to have loved them to such height and with such strength of mind.’

As I was reading these words I would have liked the Pope, through the communion of saints, to find the same contributing strength from our Movement because we love the Pope, with our spirit and under the Church’s guidance we want to increase the Christian community, and our ideal is love.”