BENEDICT XVI INAUGURATES THE NEW "DOMUS AUSTRALIA"

VATICAN CITY, 20 OCT 2011 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon the Pope travelled across Rome to inaugurate the "Domus Australia", a welcome centre for Australian pilgrims in the city. In his remarks he recalled the warm welcome he had received when he visited Australia for World Youth Day in 2008, and made mention of last year's canonisation of the first Australian saint, Mary MacKillop.

"Our earthly lives", the Holy Father said, "are spent journeying towards that ultimate goal, where 'no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him'. Here on earth, the Church's long tradition of pilgrimage to holy places serves to remind us that we are heavenward bound, it refocuses our minds on the call to holiness, it draws us ever closer to the Lord and strengthens us with spiritual food for the journey.

"Many generations of pilgrims", he added, "have made their way to Rome from all over the Christian world, in order to venerate the tombs of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and thereby to deepen their communion in the one Church of Christ, founded on the Apostles. In so doing, they strengthen the roots of their faith; and roots, as we know, are the source of life-giving sustenance. In that sense, pilgrims to Rome should always feel at home here, and the 'Domus Australia' will play an important part in creating a home for Australian pilgrims in the city of the Apostles. Yet roots are only a part of the story. According to a saying attributed to a great poet from my own country, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, there are two things that children should receive from their parents: roots and wings. From our holy Mother, the Church, we too receive both roots and wings: the faith of the Apostles, handed down from generation to generation, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, conveyed above all through the Sacraments of the Church".

Thus, the Holy Father concluded, "Pilgrims to this city return to their homelands renewed and strengthened in their faith, and borne aloft by the Holy Spirit in the journey onward and upward to their heavenly home".
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