A short time ago I read a text in which Romano Guardini admirably explains, at the beginning of the 1930s, the meaning of communion among men, its possibilities and its limits (cf. Guardini R., "Posibilità e limiti della comunione humana", 1932, in Id., Scritti filosofici, I, a cura de G. Sommavilla, Milano 1964, pp. 319-334).

Although he does not state it openly, it is in a certain sense an autobiographical account, based on his experiences of those years. And, as is often the case with Guardini, much of what he says is still very current; if anything, it illuminates our understanding of life and our Christian mission statement .

Since the 1920s, and specifically in the youth movement that Guardini was trying to guide, there was talk of "communion" because it was hoped to overcome the individualism that had long hovered over our culture. There was talk of dialogue, of the need to build bridges and break down barriers. It was expected that man has at its root a constitutional call to human communion. And that seemed to be a good foundation for Education and for society.

At the same time, it was perceived how different are the cultures, attitudes and feelings of people. To the point of recognizing that we must also learn the meaning and experience of loneliness, because there is always something incommunicable in everyone.

Along this path - this is the story of his own pathway- one comes to recognize that perfect communion does not exist between people. One could then think of achieving understanding, mutual knowledge , being able to discover what the other thinks and feels, in order to participate in his or her life.

But we soon discover that this too is difficult: misinterpretations, the unconscious search for self-affirmation even with the best of intentions, etc., etc.; in other words, we have to "recognize that we cannot fully understand the other". Moreover, we cannot even know ourselves well, and even St. Paul said that we should give up judging ourselves.

However, it is good to aspire to understand others, which implies respecting them in their mystery, in those aspects that we may never be able to penetrate, because they belong to God alone. Our understanding would improve if we approach them trying to know the framework of their existence, of their relationship with nature and with the world. Perhaps this can only be achieved if we love them, not only for what they have in common with us, but also for what is different about them.

In this way we could each overcome the spontaneous tendency to focus on "our own world" by exchanging it for another polycentric image of the world.

Following these arguments, Guardini affirms that persons cannot "possess" each other, but must always win each other back, in a renewed and mutual movement of openness toward the other. Only then can routine, which threatens every relationship of authentic fidelity between persons, be overcome. Certainly, with the passage of time," he concludes, "the relationship of fidelity can become something full of fatigue and sacrifice; but it is in this way that the true step towards staffis taken.

So much for Guardini's writing on human communion, its possibilities and limits. It is interesting that ten years earlier he wrote: "An important event has begun, the Church awakens in souls" (cf. El sentido de la Iglesia, ed. San Pablo, Buenos Aires 2010, p. 15, original German Von Sinn Der Kirche, 1922), as if taking grade from a mentality that he saw opening up at the beginning of the 20th century.

Indeed, the Church, in its deepest sense, is called to fulfill human expectations of communion, understanding and understanding between persons, peoples and cultures, in the common task of improving the world and preparing something like an outline of the world to come. Moreover, the Church is called to fulfill these expectations with the originality, depth and fullness of works that have their living foundation in God. She is, essentially, communion of God with men and with one another.

This does not mean, as we well know, that the Church is perfect in history. God has willed that she continue to perfect herself, especially with regard to her human elements, which are always subject to weakness and sin. This is how the Second Vatican Council expresses it: "The Church contains sinners in her own bosom, and being at the same time holy and in need of purification, she continually advances along the path of penance and renewal"(Lumen Gentium, n. 8).

Indeed, it is holy in itself. It is so because of its origin (because it comes from God the Father, was founded by Christ and has been continually enlivened by the Holy Spirit since the day of Pentecost). It is so because it is the depository of "holy things" (such as faith, the sacraments and the divine life that we are given to participate in). And it is so as the family of God and "communion of saints" (that is, of the righteous, already here on earth and above all in Heaven).

At the same time, the Church is a communion for now only inchoate, imperfect, until the time of its fullness arrives. But we are the sinners; not the Church in what is divine; there she is holy and beautiful, as anticipated in the figure of Mary, and realized, albeit provisionally, in the hearts of the just already on earth. It is we sinners who disfigure her face and injure her figure before the world. 

For this reason, the Church is certainly communion, but during the time of history in which we live, it is a communion on the march towards its fullness, which will be given in the consummated Kingdom of God: when the new heavens and the new earth arrive as a divine gift to which we can contribute in some way. And that will coincide with the full stage and final of the Church and of the world. For all these reasons, the Church is now communion for the mission statement. A communion and a mission statement which, being principally gifts of God, ask all Christians to collaborate day by day, with our eyes fixed on the temporal and eternal good of all people.

What to think then in the face of the sins of Christians and even the scandals of sacred ministers, and the internal struggles that we contemplate within the Church? The responsibilities are not the same, but none of us Christians can think that neither the purification for our errors and sins, nor the mission statement for which we have been summoned, is not our responsibility.

This is how Francis put it before a group of new bishops: "It is useless to point the finger at others, to make scapegoats, to tear one's garments, to take pleasure in the weakness of others, as children who have lived at home as if they were servants (cf. Lk. 15:30-31). Here it is necessary to work together and in communion, certain that authentic holiness is that which God works in us, when docile to his Spirit we return to the simple joy of the Gospel, so that its beatitude is incarnated for others in our decisions and in our lives" (speech, 13-IX-2018).