Forty years ago, on August 6, 1978, on the Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, in Castel Gandolfo near Rome, Blessed Paul VI returned to the house of the Father.

The Holy Father was in love with light, as he prophetically wrote in his Thoughts on Death, commenting on “Walk while you have the light” (John 12:35): “I would like, finishing up [dying], to be in the light,” allowing no darkness to descend upon him while he is still on the road. Paul VI held the torch and directed the Church in the light of Faith to the end, until the day of his death on the Feast of the Transfiguration in 1978. Even his last earthly day was illuminated by the light of Christ, as he wished it would be. In a way, Paul VI remained in the light, different from Peter who wanted to stay on the top of the mountain proclaiming: “Rabbi, it is good that we are here!” (Mark 9:5).

But there was more “light” and enlightenment coming from Paul VI. On Aug. 6, 1964, the Feast of the Transfiguration, Paul VI promulgated his first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam, which was a manifesto of his pontificate written in his minute handwriting. Coincidentally, he would die 14 years later, on the same day—the Feast of the Transfiguration—and in the same place—Castel Gandolfo. This encyclical is the most important ecclesiological document of Montini’s pontificate, providing an important ecclesiological framework for Lumen Gentium – the Dogmatic Constitution On the Church proclaimed by Paul VI on Nov. 21, 1964.  

The encyclical, as the title suggests, focuses on Church’s journey to a deeper and more profound self-knowledge, renewal, and dialogue with the world. Three are the ways for the Church to be faithful to her vocation, wrote Paul VI in the encyclical: spiritual, which concerns having and preserving a pure conscience; moral, which concerns the ascetic, practical, canonical renewal that the Church ought to undergo in order to be renewed so that She can be pure, holy, strong and authentic; and apostolic, which he understood in as dialogue with the world as he explained to crowds gathered in Castel Gandolfo for the general audience on Aug. 5, 1964, just one day before the promulgation of the encyclical.

Without self-knowledge and renewal there can be no genuine relationship with the world. Living the Christian identity leads to understanding the distinctions between the Christian and the worldly life, because a Christian lives in the world but is not of the world. In Ecclesiam Suam, Paul VI was thinking of an evangelizing Church with a renewed orientation toward modern men and women, mirroring Christ; a Church striving for perfection, with a renewed profession of Faith in sacramental dialogue with the world. It is in this document and with Paul VI that the term "dialogue" appears for the first time in a Church document promulgated by a Roman Pontiff.

But how can the Church dialogue with the world? Paul VI answers this in the encyclical: Not by separating herself from the world; instead, by “showing more concern and more love for those who live close at hand, or to whom it can go in its endeavor to make all alike share the blessing of salvation.” The Pope of Dialogue wanted the Church “to enter into dialogue with the world in which it lives. It [the Church] has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make.” This was Paul VI’s understanding of religion – an intelligent and reasonable dialogue between God and men, a dialogue that brings about Salvation, which is open to all people of good will (kerygma). Consequently, the rapport between Christianity and the world ought to be dialogical. It was Paul VI who elaborated on the communion ecclesiology and a genuine and profound religious conversion.

The Holy Father was conscious that conversion of the modern man “to the true faith is not the immediate object of … dialogue … nevertheless we [the Church] try to help him and to dispose him for a fuller sharing of ideas and convictions.” Dialogue was understood to be intense communication with the world, evangelizing the world, sharing the good news with the world by people who understand “the seriousness of the apostolic mission” and who see their “salvation as inseparable from the salvation of others.”

This was the pastoral dialogue that Paul VI pioneered in Ecclesiam Suam. The Church is relevant in the modern world and is a partner in dialogue; it has a message, for everyone: men and women, “young men and young women, scientists and scholars, working men and men of every class in society, professional men and politicians; but especially the poor, the unfortunate, the sick and the dying-in a word,” – it has a message for “everybody.” The pontiff reminded the faithful that the Church had to dialogue with the world, or update pastorally, but she could not change Her doctrine because doctrine depends on the Church’s divine founder and is unchangeable.

Blessed Paul VI loved the Church he served to the end of his life. His last thoughts on life and death were dedicated to the Church, as he wrote in his Pensiero alla Morte (Thoughts on Death):

I could say, that I have always loved her... and that it seems to me I have lived for her and for nothing else; but I would like the Church to know it. And what shall I say to the Church, to whom I owe everything and who was mine? May God's Blessings be upon you; may you be aware of your nature and your mission; may you have a sense of humanity's true and profound needs; and walk in poverty, in other words free, strong and in love with Christ.