We are contemplating the mystery of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. It is time to ask ourselves: Do I share with Christ his zeal for souls? Do I pray for the Church of which I form part, in which I must carry out a specific mission which no one else can do for me? To be in the Church is already much, but it is not enough. We must be the Church, because our Mother must never be a stranger to us, something external, foreign to our deepest thoughts.

Let us conclude our consideration of the marks of the Church. With the help of the Lord they will become engraved on our souls, and we will be confirmed by this clear, sure, divine criterion in order to love more this holy mother, who has brought us to the life of grace and who nourishes us, day by day, with inexhaustible care.

If by chance you hear offensive words or shouts hurled against the Church, show their loveless authors, with humanity and charity, that they cannot mistreat a mother in that way. They attack her now with impunity, because her kingdom which is that of her Master and Founder, is not of this world. As long as the wheat groans among the straw, as long as the spikes of wheat sigh among the cockle, as long as the vessels of mercy lament among those of ire, as long as the lily sobs among the thorns, there will always be enemies who say: when will she die and her name perish? They think: there will come a time in which the Church will disappear and there will be no more Christians… But, when they say this, they of necessity die. And the Church remains.

No matter what happens, Christ will not abandon his spouse. The Church triumphant is already with him at the right hand of the Father. And our Christian brothers beckon us to join them there, they who glorify God for this reality which we still see in the clear shadow of faith: the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.