Pope Francis says “When the Heart of the Lord Jesus touches our hearts, He transforms us.” at Meeting with Methodists

 The pope encourages ecumenical efforts before the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.   Pope Francis met on Monday with several members of the World Methodist Council, an association of around 80 Churches throughout the world which represent some 80 million adherents. In his address, the Pope thanked God that Catholics and Methodists have overcome our estrangement and tried to dialogue “in reciprocal knowledge, understanding, and love” for the past 60 years.

GREETING OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE DELEGATION OF THE WORLD METHODIST COUNCIL
Monday, 16 December 2024
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Dear Sister, dear Brothers, welcome!
It is a joy for me to greet Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett and the Reverend Reynaldo Ferreira Leão-Neto. I extend to you my best wishes as you begin your service as President and General Secretary of the World Methodist Council.
For a long time, Methodists and Catholics have been strangers to each other and even suspicious. Today, however, we can thank God because, for almost sixty years, we have been progressing together in knowledge, understanding and above all in mutual love. This helps us to deepen our communion with each other.
Opening ourselves, opening ourselves to one another has brought us closer, making us discover that pacification is a task of the heart: it is a task of the heart more than of the mind, of the heart. When the Heart of the Lord Jesus touches our heart, He transforms us. This is how our communities will be able to unite the different intelligences and wills to let themselves be guided by the Spirit as brothers. It is a journey that takes time, but we must continue on this path, always oriented to the Heart of Christ, because it is from that Heart that we learn to relate well to one another and to serve the Kingdom of God (cf. Encyclical Letter Dilexit nos, 28).
Next year, Christians throughout the world will celebrate the seventeen hundredth anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council, Nicaea. This anniversary reminds us that we profess the same faith and, therefore, we have the same responsibility to offer signs of hope that testify to the presence of God in the world. It is “an invitation to all Churches and ecclesial communities to proceed on the path towards visible unity, to never tire of seeking adequate ways to respond fully to the prayer of Jesus: ‘That they may all be one’” (Spes non confundit, 17). Something that the great Zizioulas, that Orthodox Bishop, used to say comes to mind: that he already knew the date of union, he knew the date of unity: it would be the day after the final judgment! But in the meantime, we must walk together, as brothers, pray together, do charity together, and move forward together in dialogue. This Zīzioulas was great!
I thank the pastors and theologians who worked in the Joint International Commission for Dialogue between the World Methodist Council and the Catholic Church, and I encourage the current members to continue in the same commitment.
To you, dear Sister and dear Brothers, thank you from the bottom of my heart for this visit. Let us remain united in prayer. Merry Christmas!