5.      A Communion among the laity themselves?

Communion with the laity calls for a new communion among religious themselves, within their respective communities; and together they will be helped to live community life. But as a deep communion is required among religious within their communities, so also the laity are called to special communion among themselves, as individuals and as Christian families, helping each other in a typical journey of their lay life. The relationship is not only laity-religious, but also among the laity. We will have to encourage them in this direction, also with our experience. But there can be even more. As religious of different institutes learn to live a communion of charisms, perhaps also the laity who live different charisms can meet for a new form of communion.

This is the experience that, for example, has been going on for a few years in the context of the Focolare Movement. For fifty years already, religious within the Movement have been meeting in a communion among charisms. Now, following upon this tried and proven experience, also the lay associates have begun to meet. In the Movement they are called “Children of the Saints”, because they are the expression of many charisms, of many founders and foundresses. Their meetings are an opportunity to discover the great variety and charismatic richness of the Church, and at the same time to become more aware of the originality and beauty of one’s own charism.