Tomorrow concludes the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This year's motto is "You shall love the Lord your God... and your neighbor as yourself" (Lk 10:27). Love is the manifestation of unity and the way to unity. Within the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the principle of unity (between the love of God the Father and the love of the Son) and of the intimate life between the divine Persons. And it is the Holy Spirit who is the principal architect of Christian unity, which requires our prayer and commitment in many ways. Beginning with the effort for unity among the Catholic faithful.

For the Catholic faith, unity is built especially in Eucharistic communion. Benedict XVI says in his first encyclical on God is love: "Union with Christ is at the same time union with all the others to whom he is submission. I cannot have Christ for myself alone; I can only belong to him in union with all those who are his or will be his. Communion brings me out of myself to go towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians. We become 'one body', united in a single existence. Now love of God and love of neighbor are truly united" (n. 14).

Indeed. All that the Church does, all that she wants to do, is the unity of love. First among believers, then among all people and in harmony with the created world. This is the good that the Church seeks, in fulfillment of her evangelizing mission statement .

Already in the book of Genesis God creates with his word that is effective and with his love that says and does what is good, what is good. The rhythm goes on and on: And God said...let it be done / And God saw that it was good . As the fullness of salvation history, Jesus Christ comes, whose message is Gospel, good news, because he is the Word that brings us good. And all that the Church does, wants to say and do good, "to bless". If someone does not understand it this way in some case, it could be because he has not understood what it is about, or because it has not been explained to him in an adequate way.

More specifically, the ministers of the Church bless in the sacraments, which have the power to transmit God's grace when they are celebrated in the required form and conditions. At other times they bless persons, objects and even animals, with formulas provided for in the rituals. Even with other non-ritualized blessings, in a simpler form, when the faithful go to them asking with confidence(fiducia supplicans) for their intercession before God for the path of life and the fulfillment of his will. It is this trust in God and the efforts to do good and to help others (even if they are poor efforts and small helps on a human level) that are blessed in these cases, even within objectively immoral situations.

Moreover, all the faithful can invoke God upon themselves or upon others in their travels and activities, so that He may protect them and help them in their response to the call to holiness and apostolate that every Christian has.

On the other hand, it is worth asking whether everything that has been blessed has been good. The blessing, or the blessings that the Church imparts through her ministers, like all ecclesial action, are situated in history, in human time. And, therefore, it is possible that its exercise or its meaning has been wounded by human limitations and frailties. For this reason, blessings should be promoted together with the necessary purification of the historical report .

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Italian Bishops, spoke on Monday, January 22, about the promotion of unity and peace as dimensions of the Church's mission statement , and the promotion of the advertisement of the faith as the primary task of the ministry of the bishops with their head, the Pope.

And in this context he referred to the declaration Fiducia supplicans. "A document that is placed on the horizon of mercy, of the Church's loving gaze on all God's children, without derogating from the teachings of the Magisterium," specifically on the sacrament of marriage.

To this purpose quotation a clarification by Cardinal Betori (Archbishop of Florence) in the Avvenire: "It is not a question of an extension of the concept of marriage, but a concrete application of the believing conviction that God's love has no limits, and that his own action is at the basis of overcoming the difficult situations in which man finds himself".

For this reason, blessings are "a pastoral resource rather than a risk or a problem", a gesture that does not intend to sanction or legitimize anything, but that people may experience the closeness of God the Father.

And Cardinal Betori adds: "Thinking in these terms about truth and its advertisement does not detract from its integrity, but makes us aware of the close link between the salvific will of God and the historical condition of man".

Cardinal Zuppi observes: "It is a question of the pastoral value of Christian truth, which always has salvation as its goal. God wants all men to be saved (1 Tim 2:4), and therefore it is the Church's task to concern herself with each and every person. We cannot forget that all the baptized enjoy the full dignity of 'children of God' and, as such, are our brothers and sisters".

In the midst of international conflicts, he proposes, an effort for unity is required. Particularly in a Europe where many seem to move like "sleepwalkers" in an opaque world where the future is not visible, and when a pessimistic and unattractive vision seems to dominate in the Church, especially for young people, the Pope echoes the words of the Lord: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness" (Mt 6:33).

We are in the preparatory year for the Jubilee of 2025 (which Francis has just declared a "Year of Prayer"). This calls for a climate of hope and faith, an open heart and a broad outlook. It is a "call from the Lord, from the thirst for meaning and faith of so many, from the disorientation of many, from the need of the poor, from the proud and desperate loneliness of some, from the anxieties. It is not only the time of secularization, but also the time of the Church!"

For this reason, the Cardinal proposes, we must not allow ourselves to be intimidated by merely sociological readings of the Church that seek to divide the bishops and the faithful in the name of social likenesses. History teaches us that in the midst of fragility the Church is always alive. And as St. John Chrysostom points out, "nothing is more powerful than kindness". Our weakness is our strength if we use it with intelligence and freedom.

And he concludes by underlining the importance, for the next generations, of the integralEducation of the person in the framework of Christian humanism: "Towards them the ecclesial and civil task consists in educating for peace, for legality, for culture, showing how Christianity has contributed to founding the values of freedom and respect for others, which are at the basis of our society".

So it is. We Christians, together with so many people of good will, continue to be called to tasks of unity, blessing and service. Tasks that are based on hope, that do not seek to judge, but to save, to sow peace and joy.