The Holy Spirit, the Council and the Community in Christ

God speaks to people through people. According to the Holy Scriptures and history of salvation as a whole, this is a characteristic of divine revelation. Also the Second Vatican Council has both a preceding and a successive story in which God's handwriting is clearly recognizable in the words and writings of different and changing actors. Eventually his spirit revealed mainly in the Council itself through very different Council Fathers and advisers as well as in the decrees the Council left to the Church and the world.

In the concert of voices that God used, Mother Marie Therese played a very special role before, during and after the Council: In her foundation The Holy Spirit confirmed “his” Council and at the same time he set an example through the Communio in Christo (communion in Christ) of how the Church of the future should be like. And the Holy Spirit through Mother Marie Therese also showed, how the Church should realize and live the “imitation of Christ”, namely through practically lived love being the first and greatest commandment.

„The Council is »his« idea“

As concerns the intervention of the Holy Spirit in the Council, we start with an episode well in advance. In Peter Hebblethwaite’s biography no one less than Pope John XXIII has a say: "The Second Vatican Council is an idea of the Holy Spirit". The decision of Pope John to hold a council had crystallized in December 1958: in January he had made his decision.

"The exact date of the decision could very well have been the night of January 8, 1959. In any case, the next morning he met Don Giovanni Rossi, who had been secretary to his hero Cardinal Ferrari forty years earlier. John said: "I want to tell you something wonderful, but you must promise me to keep it a secret. Last night I had a great idea to hold a council." Rossi muttered his applause. What can one say in such circumstances? But John's next remark took him completely by surprise. "You know, it's not true to say the Holy Spirit stands by the Pope." Rossi thought he'd misheard, but John restored his peace of mind when he continued, "The Holy Spirit doesn't help the Pope. I am simply his helper. He has done everything. The council is his idea." (Rossi in Utopia, ital. p. 315)

The Holy Spirit had awakened his idea in Pope Pius XII already at an earlier stage, i. e. through Father Riccardo Lombardi and the "Movement for a Better World" proclaimed by Pope Pius XII on 10 February 1952. Already before the Council Lombardi’s concern was for a living philanthropic Church, through which God's love and his will of salvation should be made tangible to all people. In the aftermath of the Council that was exactly the idea of the Communio in Christo foundress.

The Imitation of Christ as the Rule

On a visit to Rome Mother Marie Therese had already prepared the words she would tell Pope John Paul II, however intrigues did not make her happen to have the confirmed private audience. The words were the following: "What I am handing over to you is the realization of the Second Vatican Council!” Then she would have handed over to him her book "The Imitation of Christ as the Rule", which bindingly describes the lived love of neighbor, and her urgent request to establish a Council Congregation.

In her book „A charism in the Church“ (subtitle: „The hope for difficult times“) Mother Marie Therese, in a deep consent with the Council decrees, comments the contemporary renewal of religious orders: „In his mercy God has indeed descended into our time, in order to realize what did not go beyond words. The nature of our ruined and desperate world shows clearly that but practically lived love in communion is the basic law for the realization of the Council.”

Uniting all movements

Thus it was the „will of God, in a charism – in the foundation of the Communio in Christo – to lay the foundation for the fusion of all movements within the Catholic Church bearing “Communio” as O N E name. Its goal: The implementation of the Second Vatican Council.” In a commentary on the 1985 Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Walter Kaspar also stated that the ‘communion ecclesiology’ was "the central and basic idea of the Council documents".

On a visit to the Communio in Christo mother house, Baselios Cardinal Cleemis Catholikos meditated during a conversation in the conference room, in an almost obvious way on the bridge between the two aspects, "communion" and "communion in Christ", repeating half-loudly to himself: "Communio.... Communio... Communio..." And then loudly, as if answering his self-imposed question in front of everyone present he added: "... in Christ!" The new Church is about community in Christ. "Unite in love" was also the motto that the Catholicos of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church had chosen when he was appointed a bishop.

In Karl Rahner's and Herbert Vorgrimler's Small Council Compendium it says on page 318: "The last norm of religious life is the imitation of Christ as set forth in the Gospel. It is to be the most important rule for all institutes." In her „Rule“, Mother Marie Therese defines this as follows: „The only way to follow Christ is to actively practice love of neighbor.”

According to Mother Marie Therese the Council initiated by the Holy Spirit happened for the existential questions of men on the threshold of the third millennium to be answered und to invite them all to have communion with Christ. "A Council was called into being that calls to life. To this day it is still unrecognized..." Decisive action failed to follow the words of communion and charity.

To Mother Marie Therese the reason for this is to be found in the arrogance of ecclesiastic decision makers and a lack of humbleness towards the acting of the Holy Spirit. Pope John XXIII once said to Father Lombardi: “I am not here to guide the Church. I am here to discern the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church.”

Roots to be found in the Paschal Mystery

Angelo Roncalli, as was his civil name, who only at the age of 76 became Pope and whom the Conclave explicitly had seen as “interim solution” put into practice in an inspired and humble way or rather authorized what Pope Pius XII at the end of his pontificate and his life had felt too tired for: The Second Vatican Council.

The root of the Council is the he Paschal Mystery. Mother Marie Therese’ founding charism is a confirmation for this. For her the cross of Christ marks the point in which all lines and axes of the universe meet including the ones of her own personal sufferings and of the bliss she experienced herself in the mystical union with God. In the cross all contradiction and limits are gone; it even breaks the chains of death. In her founding charism, Mother Marie Therese confirms to the 21^st century the love of the crucified and resurrected for every single person and his act of redemption for all men. She fervently prayed to God, “that the charism would spread worldwide”. All people were to recognize the Holy Spirit in the Second Vatican Council as well as in her foundation…