Living in harmony with everyone

But now and always we have to be ready to live in harmony with everyone, to give them, through our friendship, an opportunity to draw close to Christ. We have to feel united to everyone without distinction, without dividing people into watertight compartments or putting labels on them as if they were commodities or insect specimens. We cannot separate ourselves from others, because if we did, our lives would be miserable and selfish.

Not standing out from others

“For Christians are not distinguished from other people by country or language or the customs which they observe… As citizens, they share in all things with others.”⁸ We Christians – you and I, my daughters and sons – must imitate Christ, we must be alter Christus, another Christ.

Imitating Jesus Christ

And Jesus our Lord so loved us that he became man, taking on a nature like ours, and lived on earth for thirty-three years in daily contact with poor and rich, with the just and sinners, with young and old, with Jews and Gentiles. Don’t you want to learn from Christ and follow the example of his life? Let us open the Gospel and listen to God’s dialogue with mankind.