Acta Apostolicae Sedis - Commentarium Officiale560

That temptation is not new. The history of the Church includes many ex-

amples of attempts to bypass or override human weaknesses or failures in

order to create a perfect unity, a spiritual utopia.

Such attempts to construct unity in fact undermine it! To separate the

Holy Spirit from Christ present in the Church's institutional structure would

compromise the unity of the Christian community, which is precisely the

Spirit's gift! It would betray the nature of the Church as the living temple

of the Holy Spirit.5 It is the Spirit, in fact, who guides the Church in the way

of all truth and unifies her in communion and in the works of ministry.6

Unfortunately the temptation to "go it alone" persists. Some today portray

their local community as somehow separate from the so-called institutional

Church, by speaking of the former as flexible and open to the Spirit and the

latter as rigid and devoid of the Spirit.

Unity is of the essence of the Church; 7 it is a gift we must recognize and

cherish. Tonight, let us pray for the resolve to nurture unity: contribute to it!

resist any temptation to walk away! For it is precisely the comprehensive-

ness, the vast vision, of our faith - solid yet open, consistent yet dynamic,

true yet constantly growing in insight - that we can offer our world. Dear

young people, is it not because of your faith that friends in difficulty or

seeking meaning in their lives have turned to you? Be watchful! Listen!

Through the dissonance and division of our world, can you hear the concor-

dant voice of humanity? From the forlorn child in a Darfur camp, or a

troubled teenager, or an anxious parent in any suburb, or perhaps even

now from the depth of your own heart, there emerges the same human cry

for recognition, for belonging, for unity. Who satisfies that essential human

yearning to be one, to be immersed in communion, to be built up, to be led to

truth? The Holy Spirit! This is the Spirit's role: to bring Christ's work to

fulfilment. Enriched with the Spirit's gifts, you will have the power to move

beyond the piecemeal, the hollow utopia, the fleeting, to offer the consistency

and certainty of Christian witness!

Friends, when reciting the Creed we state: "We believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord, the giver of life". The "Creator Spirit" is the power of God giving

life to all creation and the source of new and abundant life in Christ. The

5 Cfr 1 Cor 3:16. 6 Cfr Lumen Gentium, 4. 7 Cfr Catechism of the Catholic Church, 813.