Pope Benedict yesterday appealed to pilgrims at his weekly audience, to pray for the unity of Churches.The Pope told the 6,000 pilgrims gathered in the Paul VI Hall that unity was a gift from God and the fruit of the action of His Spirit.
‘The closer we draw to Christ, converting ourselves to His love, the closer we also draw to one another,’ he said. The Holy Father recalled the theme of this year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, taken from the Gospel of St. Mark: ‘He even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak’.
This phrase, he explained ‘by highlighting two aspects of the mission of each Christian community - announcing the Gospel and giving witness of charity - also underlines how important it is to translate Christ's message into real initiatives of solidarity. This advances the journey towards unity because ... all help Christians together bring to their fellows, however small, also contributes to making their communion more visible.’ ‘The road to unity remains long and difficult, but we must not be discouraged, and continue our journey, relying on the sure support of Christ,’ said the Pope.
The Pope said that the desire for unity, expressed by Church leaders over recent years, and ‘in a particularly moving way, during my recent visit to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in Istanbul’, had brought hope to his heart.
The Pope mentioned the fact that yesterday in some countries was the Day for Dialogue between Jews and Christians, and he recalled some high points in the ‘mutual friendship’ between the two communities, such as Vatican Council II and John Paul II's visit to the synagogue of Rome in April 1986.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity will come to an end next Thursday, January 25 with the celebration of Vespers presided by the Holy Father in the basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls, in the presence of representatives from other Churches and Christian communities.