Tzaneen, 19 January, 2022 / 9:00 pm (ACI Africa).
The sense of communion among Church leaders is “a fruit of the Holy Spirit” in their respective lives, a Catholic Bishop in South Africa has said.
Bishop João Noé Rodrigues who was reflecting on the Prayer to the Holy Spirit in his homily at the opening Eucharistic Celebration for the first annual Plenary Assembly of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) described the gathering of Catholic Bishops in the three-nation Conference as “a moment of grace.”
“We are called to have a sense that we have the same mind as a group, especially as Bishops, as leaders of the Church, which is really a fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives,” the Local Ordinary of South Africa’s Tzaneen Diocese said during Tuesday, January 18 Eucharistic celebration.
Bishop Rodrigues added that the unity of Church leaders is echoed in the Prayer of the Holy Spirit “which in one part says, do not let us promote disorder and it says let us find in you, the Holy Spirit, our unity so that we may journey together to eternal life.”
He explained that unity is not only the profound sense of being one in communion, but also a sense to have the same mindset and underscored the role of the third Person of the Holy Trinity saying, “the Holy Spirit helps us to forge a common mindset.”