"Such shared freedom said the Pope can be real freedom only if, through it, we enter the measure of freedom itself, if we enter God’s will. This fundamental obedience, which is part of being men, becomes ever more real in the priest: we do not announce ourselves, we announce Him and His Word, which we could not create ourselves. We do not invent the Church as we would like it to be, but we announce the Word of Christ in the right way only in the communion of His Body". In other words, "our obedience means believing with the Church, thinking and speaking with the Church, serving with it". "Being led where we do not want to is an essential dimension of our serving, and this is precisely what makes us free. In this being led, which can go against our ideas and our plans, we experience the new thing, the richness of God’s love". Jesus Christ "wanted to be everyone’s servant" and, through the "gesture of the washing of the feet", "with the humbleness of His serving, He purges us of the disease of our pride. He thus enables us to eat at God’s table". The Eucharist, he concluded, "as the presence of Christ’s ascent and descent, always recalls, beyond itself, the many ways of the service of the love of one’s neighbours".
