God does not save us as individuals

If a religious community is elitist, then it is anti-Christian. If the Community were to become a club and we looked at one another with approval, keeping those who are not part of the Community at a distance, then we would not be living a Christian life. We may be living a spiritual life (spiritual in the human sense of the word, not in the divine sense of the Spirit), it could be a very noble one, but it wouldn’t be a Christian one… 

God does not sanctify, He does not save us as individuals; rather, He will sanctify and save us insofar as we are united in a community, because He loved and still loves a people, and this people is the Church. It is God’s Church that knows and serves Him. Therefore, we may know and serve Him only to the extent that we are part of the Church, only to the extent that we somehow identify with her…

Retreat at Casa S.Sergio, January 17^th, 1965