Acta Benedicti Pp. XVI 285

I have come to proclaim anew, as Peter proclaimed on the day of Pentecost,

that Jesus Christ is Lord and Messiah, risen from the dead, seated in glory at

the right hand of the Father, and established as judge of the living and the

dead.4 I have come to repeat the Apostle's urgent call to conversion and the

forgiveness of sins, and to implore from the Lord a new outpouring of the

Holy Spirit upon the Church in this country. As we have heard throughout

this Easter season, the Church was born of the Spirit's gift of repentance and

faith in the risen Lord. In every age she is impelled by the same Spirit to

bring to men and women of every race, language and people 5 the good news

of our reconciliation with God in Christ.

The readings of today's Mass invite us to consider the growth of the

Church in America as one chapter in the greater story of the Church's ex-

pansion following the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. In those read-

ings we see the inseparable link between the risen Lord, the gift of the Spirit

for the forgiveness of sins, and the mystery of the Church. Christ established

his Church on the foundation of the Apostles 6 as a visible, structured com-

munity which is at the same time a spiritual communion, a mystical body

enlivened by the Spirit's manifold gifts, and the sacrament of salvation for all

humanity.7 In every time and place, the Church is called to grow in unity

through constant conversion to Christ, whose saving work is proclaimed by

the Successors of the Apostles and celebrated in the sacraments. This unity,

in turn, gives rise to an unceasing missionary outreach, as the Spirit spurs

believers to proclaim ''the great works of God'' and to invite all people to

enter the community of those saved by the blood of Christ and granted new

life in his Spirit.

I pray, then, that this significant anniversary in the life of the Church in

the United States, and the presence of the Successor of Peter in your midst,

will be an occasion for all Catholics to reaffirm their unity in the apostolic

faith, to offer their contemporaries a convincing account of the hope which

inspires them,8 and to be renewed in missionary zeal for the extension of

God's Kingdom.

4 Cf. Acts 2:14ff. 5 Cf. Rev 5:9. 6 Cf. Rev 21:14. 7 Cf. Lumen Gentium, 8. 8 Cf. 1 Pet 3:15.