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Friday, 29 April 1977
Already we have welcomed you, Venerable Brother, and those who have
journeyed with you to this ancient and holy place. Today we welcome
you all the more cordially, as we meet in prayer, humbled under the
mighty hand of God (Cfr. 1 Petr. 5, 6), yet full of thanks
for all the blessings that this liturgical season reminds us we owe to
the divine goodness. As we meet in praise and thanksgiving, with
petitions as wide and various as our troubled world, we are able to
discern the profound reason for your visit and for our joy in receiving
you. For with the Second Vatican Council we are convinced that
“there can be no ecumenism worthy of the name without interior
conversion” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 7).
If we examine the list of pioneers in the search for unity, we cannot
but be reminded of the majestic survey in the eleventh chapter of the
Letter to the Hebrews. It is a survey which puts the Holy
Scriptures before us as a record of faith. And we are still
“surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” (Hebr. 12, 1),
for those who in recent years have laboured in the cause of unity have
witnessed no less to faith and hope, and to the perseverance which is
their outward manifestation.
Venerable Brother, your presence here is a living expression of this
faith and hope, continually being renewed in the Spirit who will guide
us “into all the truth” (Io. 16, 13). We wish to join with
you in proclaiming this faith and hope, borrowing the words of the
Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism: “Before the whole world
let Christians confess their faith in God, one and three, in the
incarnate Son of God, our Redeemer and Lord. United in their
efforts and with mutual respect, let them bear witness to our common
hope, which does not play us false” (Unitatis Redintegratio,
12).
We know well how near to your own heart lies this desire for common
witness to Christian faith and hope, how much of your pastoral labour
in many parts of your Communion has been untiringly devoted to it.
It is the experience of all of us today that the world desperately
needs Christ. The young, in whose aspirations good is often seen
most vividly, feel this need most strongly. Secular optimism does not
satisfy them. They are waiting for a proclamation of hope. Now is
our chance to bear witness together that Christ is indeed the way, and
the truth and the life, and that he is communicated through the Holy
Spirit.
Here is a task to which the Lord calls everyone who invokes his name.
Those who are charged with the care of Christians, and who minister
to them, feel especially the responsibility of fidelity to the
apostolic faith, its embodiment in the life of the Church today, and
its transmission to the Church of tomorrow. To discern “the signs of
the times” calls for constant refreshment of mind and spirit at the
Christian sources, and especially in the Holy Scriptures. In
sending all ministers and teachers to the Scriptures, the Vatican
Council borrows strong words from Saint Augustine: those ministers
and teachers should remain in close contact with the Scriptures by
means of reading and accurate study of the text, so as not to become
like “one who vainly preaches the word of God externally, while he
does not listen to it inwardly”. And from Saint Jerome it takes
words even more pointed: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is indeed
ignorance of Christ” (Cfr. Dei Verbum, 25).
The supplications we make together this morning to our common Lord are
steeped in the Christian love of God’s word, and they renew the
reality of that pledge made together with us by your revered
Predecessor-the pledge to a serious dialogue which, founded on the
Gospels and on the ancient common traditions, may lead to that perfect
unity in truth, for which Christ prayed. What a challenge, what an
uplifting ambition is here! It is good that, while our experts
continue their work, we should meet humbly to encounter our Lord in
prayer. Indeed we might think of the example of Moses, supported by
Aaron and Hur, holding up his arms in supplication for Israel
(Luc. 24, 27). Today we raise our prayers in support of those
who strive for reconciliation and unity in Christ.
To falter in prayer is to falter in hope and to put the cause at risk.
We know that a long road remains to be travelled. But does not one of
the most moving accounts of the Risen Christ in Saint Luke’s
Gospel tell us how, as two of the disciples travelled a road
together, Christ joined them and “interpreted to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning himself”? (Luc. 24, 27)
Let us listen as we walk, strong in faith and hope, along the road
marked out for us.
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