that Saturday in St. Peter’s Square. Those thousands of people from all over the world who came to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation. Those prayers, almost murmured, echoed by the music. And those banners extolling faith in God.
The live images of TG4’s Special are eloquent, as is the testimony of those who dedicate to the honor of God their commitment, their way of being in a society all too often distracted and mortified by insolence, by selfishness. Speaking live, I ask a Spanish journalist what the sense of belonging means to her, and she replies, almost with tears in her eyes: “Always being ready to follow the path that this community has shown us.”
There are a hundred thousand people in the square. They come from more than seventy countries around the globe. The Pope welcomes them and blesses them and utters words that contain the essence of the feeling that almost hangs physically in that atmosphere, and which none of us will ever forget.
When I was asked to provide a commentary on that transmission I was afraid it was a task beyond me. Then my memory went back Christmas Eve 1981–when I was director of TG1–and a young priest of Communion and Liberation enabled me to be received by Pope Wojtyla. There, in a private chapel, he administered the Sacrament of Communion to me. And perhaps I did succeed in finding the right tone and the right words. The right words, too, when I interviewed Fr. Julián Carrón who, in the name of Fr. Luigi Giussani, its founder, is today the guide of this Fraternity.