RIMINI, Italy, MAY 3, 2004 (Zenit.org).- In a message sent to a meeting of charismatic renewal Catholics, John Paul II highlighted the need for people “who are able to communicate the fascination of the Gospel.”
This year’s annual congress of Italy’s branch of the charismatic movement, Renewal in the Spirit (RnS), attracted 25,000 members to Rimini on Sunday. The meeting focused on prayer and evangelization.
In his message, sent through Bishop Mariano de Nicolo of Rimini, the Pope said: “My heartfelt wish is that Renewal in the Spirit will increasingly inspire inner conversion in the Church, without which man will hardly be able to resist the seductions of the flesh and the concupiscence of the world.”
Our time “has great need of men and women who, like rays of light, are able to communicate the fascination of the Gospel and the beauty of the new life in the Spirit,” the Holy Father states.
He says that one must respond to the Gospel of Christ “with the boldness of faith, which is the mother of all miracles of love, with the firm trust that makes us pray to God for all goods for the salvation of our souls.”
“Each one, therefore, as a true disciple of Jesus, must apply himself tirelessly to following his teachings, making the way of spiritual renewal itself a permanent school of conversion and holiness,” John Paul II exhorts.
“To be witnesses of the ‘reasons of the Spirit’ — this is your mission, dear members of Renewal in the Spirit, in a society where often human reason does not seem to be penetrated with the wisdom that comes from on High,” he adds.
Among those invited to the RnS annual congress were Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops; Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments; and Father Raniero Cantalamessa, Papal Household preacher.
