A pilgrim among pilgrims, the Successor of Peter has arrived in Santiago. He has come to place himself at the feet of the Apostle - he said as soon as he set foot on Spanish soil - "and to allow himself to be transformed by the witness of his faith".

The embrace of the Apostle gave him the opportunity to explain: "The Church is that embrace of God in which people also learn to embrace their brothers and sisters, discovering in them the divine image and likeness, which constitutes the deepest truth of their being, and which is the origin of genuine freedom". And we Christians are the Church, called to "live enlightened by the truth of Christ, confessing the faith with joy, coherence and simplicity, at home, at work and in our commitment as citizens".

place How is it possible that in Europe God has been seen as an antagonist of man and an enemy of his freedom? How is it possible that he is reduced to "public silence", that his name is pronounced in vain or used for perverse ends?
It is necessary that the name of God resounds again in Europe, "in everyday life, in the silence of work, in fraternal love and in the difficulties that the years bring with them". And to achieve this, it is necessary to look at the meaning of the cross that appears before the pilgrims at the "crossroads" of their journey. The cross speaks to us of the necessary connection between faith in God and fraternity among people, who are children of God.

On arriving in Santiago he had pointed out that the Church is also a pilgrim: "The Church carries out her own interior journey, that which leads her through faith, hope and love, to become the transparency of Christ for the world". He concluded his homily by inviting Europe "to be at the same time a Europe open to transcendence and to fraternity with other continents".

In the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Benedict XVI considered how Gaudí managed to "overcome the split between human conscience and Christian conscience, between existence in this temporal world and openness to an eternal life, between the beauty of things and God as Beauty". And he did it "not with words, but with stones, lines, planes and summits".

Indeed, and the beauty of that temple is a symbol of the Church as the family of God and of Christian life staff. Gaudí represented in that work of art what every Christian - and even every woman and man - is called to do: to praise God and serve men "in the heart of the world", with the subject very heart of their lives and their efforts, in the normal events of existence, through the effort to attend to the needs of others. To give glory to God with one's whole life is the true Life of man. The Pope proposed that the great task of Christians is - in their daily lives - "to show everyone that God is a God of peace and not of violence, of freedom and not of coercion, of harmony and not of discord".

In this way beauty - a reflection of God and man's need - can spring from the human heart capable of recognizing God, loving him and loving all that he has created, collaborating in the construction of the world through culture and work. The temple is a symbol of all this, he recalled, quoting Gaudi: "A temple (is) the only thing worthy of representing the feelings of a people, since religion is the highest thing in man".

Gaudí presents the Holy Family of Nazareth as the center of every family, "the hope of humanity, in which life finds welcome, from its conception to its natural decline". The Church is also understood as the family of God and the seed of universal fraternity. The Church - like every Christian in her and every Christian family - must be, according to Benedict XVI, "an icon of divine beauty, a burning flame of charity, a channel for the world to believe in the One whom God has sent". And the temple of God leads to show that "every person is a true sanctuary of God, to be treated with the utmost respect and affection, especially when in need" (visit to the charitable-social work "Nen Deu").

Thus it is understandable that during his homily in Barcelona, the Pope said that Christians must be "witnesses of holiness" on this earth. This is, in other words, "the great service that the Church can and must render to humanity: to be an icon of divine beauty, a burning flame of charity, a channel for the world to believe in the One whom God has sent (cf. Jn 6:29)".

Etsuro Sotoo - the Japanese sculptor working on the Sagrada Familia who converted to Catholicism in 1991 - says: "Gaudí not only built the temple, but the temple built him. I have experienced the same thing over the years. And he adds that every work of art needs to be completed with the contemplation of the one who captures it.

Benedict XVI's trip to Spain highlighted the fact that the Christian faith is a path that leads to the discovery of Beauty and its manifestation to others.