Cardinal Camillo Ruini's words at the Mass in thanksgiving for the thirtieth anniversary of the Renewal in Italy

Basilica of Saint John Lateran, March 14th 2002

Isaiah 63:7-9
Psalm 113 (112)
Gospel according to Luke 10: 17-21

1.    It is with great joy that, in this Eucharistic Celebration, I join in with you all in entrusting to the eucharistic sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, your thanks to God the Father for the great benefits which He has showered upon you in these thirty years of charismatic experience in Italy and for the immense mercy with which Jesus, the Son of God, "trustworthy and upright will forgive our sins" (1 Jn 1:9).
The Holy  Father, John Paul II has reminded you of these gifts in the various speeches
he has addressed to you and in the autograph letters he has sent you these last few years.
In the very first audience granted to you about twenty two years ago, the Holy Father remarked that  "you are the bearers of a deeper experience of the presence of Christ" (11.23.80) and, in his last autograph letter, written just last year, he pointed out that RnS "represents a special gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church in these times of ours" (4.28.2001).
The action of the Spirit has aroused in many of you "a renewed discovery of the great resource of prayer". He has turned many of your meetings into "places of contemplation and praise", "gymnasiums" of brotherly communion, where the Spirit of the risen Lord, besides enabling us to participate in his redeeming passion, also allows us to experience of the gifts and spiritual graces which he freely gives out to each individual "at will" (cp. 1 Cor. 12:11)
It is because of the response that the Spirit of God has aroused in you  that many of your groups and communities are looked up to as "models of brotherhood and love, of patience and mutual acceptance" (see John Paul II's autograph letter to RnS, April 28th 2001) and as groupings of believers, where the Spirit pours out a wealth of special graces. This has made many of you "fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church" (LG12)

2.  Among these special graces, special mention must be made of your rediscovery of holiness as of the heart and center of all apostleship  and thereby of an "increased commitment to the spreading of the Gospel".
	Today, thirty years later, we can declare, not without deep gratitude to the Lord, that the Renewal in the Holy Spirit has been a singular carrying out both of the daring prophetic hope that was spoken by the Blessed John XIII when, on the eve of Vatican Council II, he prayed: "Renew in our age the marvels of a new Pentecost", as well as of the words pronounced by Paul VI in the pontifical audience of October 16th 1974: "May the Lord pour forth, today, a great shower of gifts, to make the Church fruitful, lovely and full of marvels, capable of claiming the attention and the astonishment of the laical world, of the secularizing world."
	Today, thirty years later, we are witnessing a true "spiritual revival" within the Churches and ecclesial communities. May the Holy Spirit be thanked!
	The Italian Bishops' Conference has thanked God for your presence and officially acknowledged it in January 1996, when, rejoicing at your "testimony"  before the Churches of God that are in Italy, it expressed a note of approbation through the Statutes of your Association.
	It was with joy that I came to Rimini for your 19th  National Meeting, that same year, to give you the news.
	This evening, with renewed joy, I can announce that this very morning, in its final session, the Permanent Council of the Italian Bishops' Council, after the time allotted "ad experimentum", pronounced its final approval of your Statutes. While this was taking place, you were being given the gift of a private audience with the Holy Father, John Paul II.
This makes me very happy, and I hope that it will afford you a renewed ardour and give you the creative impetus of the first Christian communities, for the good of the Church and of civil society in this Italy of ours.

 3.  The words of the prophet Isaiah that have been proclaimed in this Celebration lead us first of all to commemorate the gifts of the Lord and the intervention of his power, which has been manifested in the course of these years: the glories of the Lord, what he has done for us.
	Scripture reminds us that we must never forget the gestures of compassion by means of which the Lord has shown us the greatness of his mercy, at our every step, throughout our journey.
The Spirit of the Lord will not be disappointed and will not grieve (see Eph 4:30), if we do not tire of invoking him as our liberator in all our troubles, if we do not tire of proclaiming, with the enthusiasm of the first believers, that "Jesus is the Lord!", if we do not close our hearts to the experiences that the Lord reserves to those that gather in his name, with a faith capable of moving mountains. 
	The hope contained in the prophecy of Isaiah becomes a promise in the Gospel according to Luke which has been read to us. If you continue to remain with the Lord, and at the orders of the Lord, nothing can harm you. If your Christian life continues to show the world how wonderful it is to live as citizens of the heavens (Heb. 13:14), you will be among those little ones to whom the Lord reveals things that remain hidden to the learned and to the wise.
	Our eyes will then see the Pentecost that from Jerusalem  has shone forth across the ages. Our times clamor for a new realization of this Pentecost.
	May the Spirit of the Lord continue to grant you and increase in each of you the boldness which we all need today to face the difficulties as well as the hostility of a world which has  distanced itself from God, so as to contribute to making our Church more and more beautiful, more pure, more credible, more loving to its Lord, and more holy.
	May the Lord enable you to participate ever more fervently and confidently in the "group of witnesses" that help every person of good will to follow the road leading to salvation.

4. Let me conclude by expressing a few wishes that are alive in my heart and that may convey the Italian bishops' true solicitude towards you.
First of all, persist in your sincere submission, joyful cooperation and  enthusiastic  response to the expectations of your Pastors. In particular, I ask you to be more and more attentive to the wishes of your bishops, by ensuring your active presence in diocesan pastoral circles, and particularly by sustaining the cause of young people and families.
I am happy to know that in Loreto, at the "Family of Nazareth" House that you have been entrusted with, you are already holding schools and carrying out projects of evangelization which, in close accord with the national offices of the Italian Bishops Conference, work to support families that are in trouble and to foster projects centering on family spirituality.
	I also appeal to your sincere intention of working towards a greater communion to ask you to promote, as you have already begun to do, a fruitful relationship with the other Italian charismatic communities which, on a local level, are living independently according to their own choice. I hope that you may walk together along a consolidated path which may be more and more brotherly and united, based on the common origins that give life to all of the Renewal.
I am delighted for you to have reached this goal, together with, among others, "The Mary Communities" and "The Risen Christ", which have the approval of their respective pastors, who are present in this celebration of ours and to whom I extend my warmest greeting.
Another reason for hope is your hearty dialogue with the Ecclesial movements and the new communities, which follows the path pointed to by the Holy Father on Pentecost Day 1998.
I extend my warm regards to the founders, the leaders and the people in charge of the Movements and Communities that have chosen to join our prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord, by participating in this Eucharist. 
	I ask you also to show an exemplary loyalty to the "criteria of ecclesiality"  indicated in the Apostolic Exhortation "Christifideles laici". In so doing your journey in the faith will be more and more fertile in a new missionary impetus and in attention to the needs of the world and to the greater welfare of the Church. Be steadfast in your faithfulness, even if it were to entail some sacrifices.
	I also hope that you will increase the missionary bent that you are manifesting  with respect to your fellow RnS's present in sister nations such as Australia, Canada, the United States, Switzerland, Spain and Germany, where there is a great need for education and brotherly support.
Your work with the poor Churches, which you have enthusiastically started with the incredibly poor Church of Moldavia, is highly praiseworthy: I bless the first missionary nucleus that is about to reach the diocese of Chisinau to give birth to the Catechistic Institute and to the work of evangelization.
	Lastly, be faithful to the Statutes that I am ideally delivering back into your hands. Fulfill the expectations and the aims they contain, in full freedom of the Spirit, as a guarantee that the Church is giving to you through the Italian Bishops' Conference.

Camillo Cardinal Ruini, March 2002