ADDRESS OF POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO PILGRIMS FROM ARUNDEL AND BRIGHTON (ENGLAND)

Monday, 24 October 1983

Dear Friends,

It is a joy for me to be with you today. Your presence recalls the time I spent in your Diocese, my short stay at Gatwick Airport on my arrival in England. My visit then, the visit of the young people to me in August, and your visit now are all moments of ecclesial communion, howsoever brief. We are one in Christ and in his Church, united in the word of God, united in our holy Catholic faith.

In particular, you have come to Rome with your Bishop in order to celebrate with the universal Church the mystery of the Redemption. You have come with hearts open to Christ the Redeemer, asking to receive his forgiveness and his love in your own lives, asking mercy for the Church and for the whole world. At the same time your are called to give thanks to the Father of mercy and the God of all consolation who has called us all “out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Petr. 2, 9). 

Your vocation during this Holy Year and always is to become ever more a people of prayer - prayer expressed in petition and praise, in reparation and adoration. And it is in the Eucharistic Sacrifice that your prayer will be united with Christ’s own prayer and be offered to the Father. In the Eucharistic Sacrifice the mystery of the Redemption is renewed and you enter into that mystery of grace.

Dear pilgrims from Arundel and Brighton in the prayerful celebration of Mass, open your hearts ever wider to Jesus Christ the Redeemer of the world.