THE CHURCH OF LOVE IS ALSO THE CHURCH OF TRUTH

VATICAN CITY, APR 5, 2006 (VIS) - Service to communion within the Church was the theme of Benedict XVI's catechesis during his general audience, held this morning in St. Peter's Square in the presence of 30,000 people.

  "The source of the communion of the disciples, both with one another and with God, is the Spirit that pours the love of God into our hearts," the Pope began. "Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit is, there is the Church and all grace," he added, quoting the words of St. Irenaeus. "This intimate link with the Spirit does not eliminate our humanity with all its weaknesses, as the community of disciples is well aware." Proof of this is "constituted above all by the contrasts concerning the truth of faith and the subsequent lacerations of communion."

  "That the early Church was also aware of these potential tensions within the experience of communion is clear from the First Letter of John. No voice in the New Testament rises with greater force to highlight the reality and the duty of fraternal love between Christians; yet the same voice addresses itself with drastic severity to the adversaries who were members of the community but are so no longer. The Church of love is also the Church of truth, primarily understood as being faithfulness to the Gospel that Christ entrusted to His followers."

  Communion, the Pope explained, "arises from a faith inspired by apostolic preaching, it is nourished by the breaking of bread and by prayer, and it is expressed in fraternal charity and in service. ... The Apostles and their successors are thus the custodians and authoritative witnesses of the deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, just as they are also ministers of the charity revealed and donated by the Lord Jesus. In this way, theirs is above all a service of love; and the charity they live and promote is inseparable from the truth they defend and transmit. Truth and love are two faces of the same gift that comes from God and that, thanks to the apostolic ministry, is safeguarded within the Church, reaching down to our own time."
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