{"id":342836,"date":"2014-02-28T13:38:26","date_gmt":"2014-02-28T12:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/the-churchs-challenge-is-communion\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:11:56","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:11:56","slug":"the-churchs-challenge-is-communion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/the-churchs-challenge-is-communion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Church\u2019s Challenge is Communion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u201cSociety today is in great need of witnesses<\/strong> to a lifestyle from which the novelty given to us by the Lord Jesus shines through: of brothers and sisters who love each other even in their differences. . . . This witness enkindles the desire to be involved in that great parable of communion which is the Church.\u201d With these words Pope Francis <\/strong>welcomed the Bishop Friends of the Focolare Movement<\/a> on February 27, 2014, whom he received in a private audience in the Sala Clementina, during their annual convention. Pope Francis called the opportunity of a fraternal annual meeting, in which to share spiritual and pastoral experiences in the light of the charism of unity, \u201ca very good thing\u201d. <\/strong>Bishops, he told them, you are called to bring to these meetings the wide breath of the Church, and to ensure that what you receive there benefits the entire Church.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong> Quoting the Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte <\/a>of Blessed John Paul II, he remembered the duty of \u201cmaking the Church into a home and school of communion\u201d to ensure \u201cthe efficacy of any and every effort in evangelisation.\u201d\u00a0 He then emphasised that it is necessary to promote the \u201cspirituality of communion,\u201d <\/strong>to make it emerge as an educational principle wherever a human being or Christians is being formed, and that \u201ccultivating the spirituality of communion contributes as well, to enabling us to live the ecumenical journey and interreligious dialogue.\u201d There was an opening greeting <\/strong>in the name of all the bishops by Francis-Xavier Kovithavanij, Archbishop of Bangkok, Thailand <\/strong>and moderator of the convention. He then mentioned their experience: \u201cChiara Lubich<\/a> has made us discover Jesus crucified and forsaken<\/a> as the \u2018super-love\u2019. In him we have an ever available source of joy for our witness in today\u2019s world.\u201d Like everyone, \u201cwe find sufferings in our lives, failures and setbacks, contradictions,\u201d but we try to embrace them \u201cas unique occasions for being similar to Christ . . . in favour of his body, which is the Church.\u201d A long line and handshaking, <\/strong>brief conversations and a festive group photo concluded the audience with Pope Francis, leaving a sense of a living collegiality in all the bishops. <\/strong>Sixty bishops from four continents met from February 24-28, 2014 at the Mariapolis Centre in Castel Gandolfo<\/strong> focusing on the theme: \u201cMutual Love Amongst the Disciples of Christ.\u201d Focolare <\/a>president Maria Voce<\/a> gave a presentation on this central point of Focolare spirituality<\/a>. This was followed by an open discussion, comments and personal testimonials. The voice of the lay people was quite appreciated<\/strong> especially that of a family and a group of lively youths. There were two round table discussions <\/strong>focusing on two important topics: \u201cEcclesiological themes that emerge from the first year of the pontificate of Pope Francis: this was presented by Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, <\/strong>Prefect of the Congregation of the Consecrated Life and Archbishop Vincenzo Zani<\/strong>, Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education; and the presentation on \u201cSynodality and Primacy, in the light of the teaching and practice of Pope Francis,\u201d by Kurt Koch, <\/strong>President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, Bishop Brendan Leahy, <\/strong>bishop of Limerick, Ireland, and Bishop Cristof Hegge, <\/strong>Auxiliary Bishop of Munster, Germany. This dimension attracted the interest of many in the media<\/strong> who amplified the message, gathering testimonies of bishops who shared in the meeting \u2013 especially those from countries affected by war, political, economic and social instability \u2013 and their experience of \u201caffective and effective collegiality\u201d. Four days in Rome <\/strong>with the spirituality of unity was also an opportunity to hear about the efforts and commitment of Christians from the Universal Church around the world. By Victoria Gomez<\/em> See video of the private audience and related articles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Society needs to see that mutual love is possible. These were the words of Pope Francis to the Bishop Friends of the Focolare whom he received in a private audience on February 27, 2014 in the Vatican\u2019s Sala Clementina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}