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Your Grace,
Dear Friends,
I greet you and welcome you with the prayer of the great Apostle of the Nations: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:2).
It gives me particular pleasure, Your Grace, to meet you so soon after your celebration of ten years as Archbishop of Canterbury. I wish you personally every happiness, confident that the Lord will continue to sustain you in the many and difficult tasks of your service to the Anglican Communion throughout the world.
Remembering the marvellous experience of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, my prayer for Christian unity is ever more intense. I was pleased to learn of the good results of the meeting of Anglican and Catholic Bishops in Canada last year. May the Lord bless this initiative with fruits of deeper understanding and reconciliation between Anglicans and Catholics in a world that stands in such urgent need of our greater common witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ our Risen Saviour.
I thank you for your kind visit, and as we prepare to celebrate Pentecost let us open our hearts and minds to the transforming grace of the Holy Spirit. God’s blessings be with you all!
[Original text: English; supplied by Vatican]
