ST. EGIDIO: FRIENDSHIP LIVED WITH EVANGELICAL SENSITIVITY

VATICAN CITY, FEB 8, 2002 (VIS) - At midday today, John Paul II received bishops and priests who are participating in Rome in the fourth international meeting of the Community of St. Egidio, and who are considering the theme of the primacy of sanctity and prayer in the Church's mission.

Your reflections and the conclusions you draw from this meeting, said the Holy Father, will enrich your "spiritual and pastoral baggage for the times ahead. The century that has just begun awaits the communication of the Gospel 'sine glossa' as St. Francis used to say, it awaits disciples who are coherent witnesses of that Gospel to the very end." After recalling the many bishops, priests and lay people who gave their lives for the Gospel over the last century, he said: "May the testimony of these 'new martyrs,' whom I particularly wished to recall during the Jubilee, be a precious heritage for all of us."

The Pope then addressed some remarks to Andrea Riccardi who "began the community's journey" 34 years ago. "They have been years marked by listening to the Gospel and by friendship with all people. It could be said that friendship characterizes every aspect of the life of the Community of St. Egidio. Friendship lived with evangelical sensitivity is an effective way to be Christian in the world; it enables frontiers to be crossed and distances covered, even when they seem insurmountable. ... This friendship becomes a force for reconciliation, a truly necessary force in our time so dramatically marked by conflict and violent confrontations."

Ever since the first prayer meeting for peace, held in Assisi, Italy, in 1986, the community has promoted annual meetings "that have brought the 'spirit of Assisi' to blow through the skies of various European cities. As a result, an extraordinary movement has come into being of men and women from different religions who, without confusion, never cease to invoke from God peace for all people."

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