Abstrakt: | At the close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 in his letter Novo millennio
ineunte John Paul II pointed at pastoral priorities and paths to follow (compare:
NMI 29-41) to make the Church the home and the school of communion. He
issued a strong warning against the temptation of activism: “Before making practical
plans, we need to promote a spirituality of communion […]. Let us have no
illusions: unless we follow this spiritual path, external structures of communion
will serve very little purpose. They would become mechanisms without a soul,
‘masks’ of communion rather than its means of expression and growth” (NMI 43).
It follows that promoting the spirituality of communion should be “the guiding
principle of education wherever individuals and Christians are formed, wherever
ministers of the altar, consecrated persons, and pastoral workers are trained,
wherever families and communities are being built up” (NMI 43). According to
the pastoral priorities defined by the Pope, the perspective of sainthood can be
related to the attitude of “believing”; the priority of prayer can be associated with
“remembering”; the sacrament of reconciliation with “forgiving”; listening to the
word of God with “receiving”; Eucharist with “giving thanks”; the priority of grace
with “giving”; preaching the word of God with “going out”. Similarly, following
the suggestion made by John Paul II, a tool to implement the spirituality of communion
can be “a formula of life” hidden in the words of the consecration: “to take
bread in one’s hand” is to let the Holy Spirit lead us especially in prayer; “saying
the blessing” means to listen; “broke” means to be purified; “giving bread away”
means to evangelize; “this is my Body” means to create communion; “take this,
all of you, and eat of it” means to spread mercy; “do this in memory of me” means
to love by the love of Christ and in the power of the Spirit of God. Following the
said attitudes, we have become promoters of the spirituality of communion on
the basis of which we are able “to make the Church the home and the school of
communion” (NMI 43). |