"Every Council is born of the Church and goes back to the Church". This was said by the Pope, as, during today’s audience, he lingered on the Council of Jerusalem the first Council in the history of the Church which was focussed on "the meaning that Paul and his communities gave to the collection for the poor of Jerusalem". "It was an entirely new initiative in the scenario of religious activities", recalled Benedict XVI: "it was not compulsory but free and spontaneous; all the Churches founded by Paul for the West joined in". "The collection went on the Pontiff expressed the debt of his communities for the mother Church of Palestine, from which they had received the unspeakable gift of the Gospel". "So great" is the value given by Paul to this "gesture of sharing" that "for him it is rather a service, a blessing, love, grace, liturgy". Factors, these ones, that are all "present in every liturgy celebrated and experienced in the Church, which by its very nature is opposed to the separation between the cult and life, between faith and deeds, between prayer and the assistance of one’s brothers". Born to "settle the question on how to behave with the pagans who reached faith, choosing to be free of circumcision and the Law", the Council of Jerusalem concluded the Pope is resolved as an ecclesial and pastoral need, which places at its heart the poor of Jerusalem and of all the Church".
