Pope says unity in Christ makes friends out of strangers

Published: 2007-12-12

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Being united in Christ makes friends even out of complete strangers, Pope Benedict XVI said at his weekly general audience. "Without having met, we know each other because we are members of one body," the body of Christ and the church, he said quoting a letter by St. Paulinus to St. Augustine. During his Dec. 12 general audience in the Vatican's Paul VI hall, the pope continued a series of talks on the teachers of the early church with a catechesis on St. Paulinus, the bishop of Nola in southern Italy. Born in southern France in 354, the saint converted to Christianity as an adult. After the death of their first child, he and his wife lived a life of chastity, prayer and dedication to the poor. When he was chosen bishop of Nola in 409, St. Paulinus continued to help the poor and stayed close to his flock during the tumult of barbarian invasions.

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