Acta Apostolicae Sedis - Commentarium Officiale800

human history. The love of God became visible, manifested fully and defini-

tively in Jesus Christ. He thus came down to meet man and, while remaining

God, took on our nature. He gave himself in order to restore full dignity to

each person and to bring us salvation. How could we ever explain the my-

stery of the incarnation and the redemption except by Love? This infinite

and eternal love enables us to respond by giving all our love in return: love

for God and love for neighbour. This truth, which we consider foundational,

was what I wished to emphasize in my first Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, since

this is a central teaching of the Christian faith. Our calling and mission is to

share freely with others the love which God lavishes upon us without any

merit of our own.

I am well aware that Muslims and Christians have different approaches in

matters regarding God. Yet we can and must be worshippers of the one God

who created us and is concerned about each person in every corner of the

world. Together we must show, by our mutual respect and solidarity, that we

consider ourselves members of one family: the family that God has loved and

gathered together from the creation of the world to the end of human history.

I was pleased to learn that you were able at this meeting to adopt a

common position on the need to worship God totally and to love our fellow

men and women disinterestedly, especially those in distress and need. God

calls us to work together on behalf of the victims of disease, hunger, poverty,

injustice and violence. For Christians, the love of God is inseparably bound to

the love of our brothers and sisters, of all men and women, without distinc-

tion of race and culture. As Saint John writes: ''Those who say, 'I love God',

and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother

or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen''.2

The Muslim tradition is also quite clear in encouraging practical commit-

ment in serving the most needy, and readily recalls the ''Golden Rule'' in its

own version: your faith will not be perfect, unless you do unto others that

which you wish for yourselves. We should thus work together in promoting

genuine respect for the dignity of the human person and fundamental human

rights, even though our anthropological visions and our theologies justify this

in different ways. There is a great and vast field in which we can act together

in defending and promoting the moral values which are part of our common

heritage. Only by starting with the recognition of the centrality of the person

2 1 Jn 4:20.