By John Kinder
Perth representative for Communion and Liberation, John Kinder, last month visited Rome as part of a meeting of the movement with Pope Francis. Below, Mr Kinder shares his thoughts on the experience.
What do you say to the Pope when you have ten seconds and there are 80,000 people watching (but hopefully not listening)? This was one of the things going through my mind as I caught a plane one Thursday recently, heading for Rome.
That Saturday, 7 March, I was with members and friends of the Communion and Liberation movement who packed St Peter’s Square for a meeting with the Holy Father.
The founder of the CL movement, Monsignor Luigi Giussani, died ten years ago last month. So we were there asking for guidance on how to be Christians in a world of such rapid transformation.
His words are for all. We must remain true to what we have encountered. How? He quoted Gustav Mahler: “Faithfulness to tradition means keeping the flame alive, not worshipping the ashes”.
The Pope cut quickly to the heart of the matter. Christianity is nothing if it is not an encounter with the living Jesus, the one who was crucified and is risen.
Just like Andrew and John, the first disciples who encountered Jesus; Matthew in his counting house; Zacchaeus up his tree; and Mary Magdalene in the garden on Easter morning.
Today, in 2015, we too are called to encounter Jesus Christ just as truly as those Gospel characters did. The place we encounter Him is in the body of believers.
The first step is not ours: Jesus always goes ahead of us, waiting patiently to embrace us in mercy. Francis said: “You cannot understand the dynamic of the encounter that arouses
wonder and adhesion without mercy”.
Mgr Giussani spent his life drawing people to an encounter with Jesus. This is our life’s work too.
To do this, all charisms in the Church must be ‘decentred’: at the centre, there is only the Lord! “Thus, centred in Christ and in the Gospel, you can be the arms, hands, feet, mind and heart of an ‘outward oriented’ Church.”
At the end of the meeting I was one of a lucky few who met the Pope personally. Among the others was a group of prisoners from Italian jails.
So what did I say to him? Nothing worth quoting! What I remember is his gaze on me for those ten seconds. A gaze full of tenderness and affection, of wisdom and strength, and encouragement to begin again. The gaze of a father.