Pope Francis to the members of the Neocatechumenal Way: "Just as children resemble their mother, we all resemble the Church"
Unity", "glory" and "world" are the three evangelical words that Pope Francis left as a gift, on March 18th, to the members of the Neocatechumenal Way gathered in audience on the occasion of the 50 new missio ad gentes, composed of approximately 250 families from the five continents.
"The Church," said the Pope, "is our Mother. Just as children bear the resemblance with their mother imprinted in their faces, so we all resemble our Mother, the Church. After baptism, we no longer live as isolated individuals, but we have become men and women of communion, called to be artisans of communion in the world. For did Jesus founded the Church not only for us, but he founded Her as a Church. The Church is not a tool for us: we are the Church. Through Her are born again" and, he continued, "this is the fruitfulness of the Church, who is Mother: She is not an organization that seeks followers, or a group that goes on following the logic of its own ideas, but She is a mother who transmits the life received from Jesus."
It is under the banner of ''unity"—because the "weed" is the "temptation of all communities and can also insinuate itself into the most beautiful charisms of the Church"—and, invested with a "paradoxical glory: without noise, without gain and without applause," the way's participants of have been sent into the world. You—the Pope concluded—will go going to so many cities, to many countries. God is not attracted by the worldliness; indeed, He detests it; but He loves the world that He has created, and He loves His children in the world as they are, wherever they live, even if they are away."
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