Visit to the parish of San Basilio 3-10-1979
St. John Paul II
Rome, March 10, 1979
Presentation of the parish priest Don Carmelo: “Holy Father, here you find gathered four Neocatechumenal Communities. The communities are based on a tripod: listening to the Word of God which is done on Wednesday and the Eucharistic celebration on Saturday. The celebration of the Word is prepared in groups. Later, it is founded on the second pillar which is the Eucharist, after a profound catechesis on the Eucharistic mystery. The third pillar is life in the community, in the convivences; they come to live in the community a communal life, not just life in common. Of these four communities, the first was born four years ago and then, year after year, the rest. Here is the catechist who came the first time, Gioacchino.”
Gioacchino addressing the Holy Father said: “Holy Father, all of us gathered here are happy to have you in our midst, to welcome you in the ‘Name of the Lord’, as ‘he who comes in the Name of the Lord.’ We want to express to you, I on behalf of all these brothers, the great joy of being able to discover, in this Neocatechumenal Way, the Church as our Mother, who little by little is bringing us to rediscover our Baptism. We feel an immense gratitude to the Lord and to the Church because this Way is helping us greatly to feel the Lord Jesus Christ alive and present and in our life and to create fraternal communion. We thank the Church – and you who in our midst make it particularly present and alive- for making this great gift of rediscovering our Baptism. Now, as you invite us to continuously do, we sing …”
“That is why we sing: Death is swallowed up in victory!” »
These are the words that the Pope spontaneously spoke:
“From all the words that you have said, the most important is that of rediscovery. Many think they know everything about: the Church, Christ, the Gospel, God … they know everything but they have nothing to discover. They have taught it to us in school, so school is enough; then we forget, but we know everything. However, everything is to be rediscovered… Only the faith that knows how to discover itself, its content, its fundamental attitude, is the dynamic faith. For the Church and for the people of God it is necessary the dynamic faith that attempts to discover, that knows how to find itself.
I wish for you to go forward on the way you have started, that you discover more and more the mystery of the Church, the mystery of Christ, the mystery of God. This discovery leads us to ourselves: since the mystery of Christ, the mystery of the Church can only be explained inside of ourselves. I can’t live without the Church, without understanding that which I am, without understanding myself. There is a very joyous, very positive effort and I wish for you to persevere.”