Vatican City, Jul 1, 2018 / 05:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics have no reason to fear death, because Christ the Lord has power over death; instead, they should fear sin, which hardens and kills the soul, Pope Francis said Sunday.
“Jesus is the Lord, and before Him physical death is like sleep: there is no reason to despair. A different [thing] is the death to be afraid of: that of the heart hardened by evil! Of that yes, we must be afraid!” the pope said July 1. “It is the death of the heart.”
“But even sin, even the mummified heart, is never the last word for Jesus, because He has brought us the infinite mercy of the Father.”
Francis explained that “even if we fell down, [Jesus’] soft and strong voice reaches us: ‘I tell you: get up’ It is beautiful to hear those words of Jesus addressed to each one of us: ‘I tell you: stand up! Go. Stand up, be brave, get up!’”
During his Angelus address, the pope reflected on how the words Jesus speaks in the day’s Gospel from Mark speak also to people today. In the passage, Jesus performs two miraculous healings: the hemorrhaging woman and the young daughter of a synagogue official.
In both cases, there is a singe center: faith, he said. “And they show Jesus as the source of life, as the one who gives back life to those who trust him fully.”
When Jesus and the disciples, as they walk to the house of Jairus, receive the message that the girl has already died, “we can imagine the dad’s reaction,” he said. “But Jesus tells him: ‘Do not be afraid, only have faith!’”
Everyone should strive to have this faith, Pope Francis said, and no one should ever feel they do not have a right to reach out to Jesus, just like the hemorrhaging woman.
To have access “to the heart of Jesus, there is only one requirement: to feel in need of healing and to entrust one’s self to Him,” he said.
Speaking off-the-cuff, the pope asked: “does each one of you feel in need of healing? [To be healed] of something, some sin, some problem?”
“And, if you hear this, do you have faith in Jesus? These are the two requisites to be healed, to have access to his heart: to feel in need of healing and to rely on Him.”
After praying the Angelus, Pope Francis spoke about several countries experiencing violence and conflict. He said he renewed his prayers for the people of Nicaragua, praising the the Nicaraguan bishops and people working to bring about mediation and national dialogue.
He also noted the situation in Syria, which he said, “remains serious,” especially in the province of Daraa, where recent military action has resulted in damage to schools and hospitals and created thousands of new refugees.
“I renew, together with prayer, my appeal that the population, already hard-tried for years, will be spared further suffering,” he said. The pope also guaranteed his prayers for the young people who have been missing in an underground cave in Thailand for over a week.
Francis added that “in the midst of so many conflicts,” it is also right to point out good news, noting that “after 20 years, the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea have come back to talk about peace together.”
“May this meeting light a light of hope for these two countries of the Horn of Africa and for the entire African continent,” he said.
He concluded by mentioning his upcoming visit to the Italian town of Bari, where, with leaders of Christian Churches and communities in the Middle East, he will have a day of prayer and reflection on the situation in that region.
There “so many of our brothers and sisters in the faith continue to suffer, and we will implore [with] one voice: ‘Peace be upon you’ (Ps. 122:8),” he said. “I ask everyone to accompany this pilgrimage of peace and unity with prayer.”
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Bishops process into St. Peter’s Basilica for the closing Mass of the first assembly of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 29, 2023. / Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Jul 9, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The guiding document for the final part of the Synod on Synodality, published Tuesday, focuses on how to implement certain of the synod’s aims, while laying aside some of the more controversial topics from last year’s gathering, like women’s admission to the diaconate.
“Without tangible changes, the vision of a synodal Church will not be credible,” the Instrumentum Laboris, or “working tool,” says.
The six sections of the roughly 30-page document will be the subject of prayer, conversation, and discernment by participants in the second session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be held throughout the month of October in Rome.
Instead of focusing on questions and “convergences,” as in last year’s Instrumentum Laboris, “it is now necessary that … a consensus can be reached,” said a FAQ page from synod organizers, also released July 9, answering a question about why the structure was different from last year’s Instrumentum Laboris.
The guiding document for the first session of the Synod on Synodality in 2023 covered such hot-button topics as women deacons, priestly celibacy, and LGBTQ outreach.
By contrast, this year’s text mostly avoids these subjects, while offering concrete proposals for instituting a listening and accompaniment ministry, greater lay involvement in parish economics and finances, and more powerful parish councils.
“It is difficult to imagine a more effective way to promote a synodal Church than the participation of all in decision-making and taking processes,” it states.
The working tool also refers to the 10 study groups formed late last year to tackle different themes deemed “matters of great relevance” by the Synod’s first session in October 2023. These groups will continue to meet through June 2025 but will provide an update on their progress at the second session in October.
The possibility of the admission of women to the diaconate will not be a topic during the upcoming assembly, the Instrumentum Laboris said.
The new document was presented at a July 9 press conference by Cardinals Mario Grech and Jean-Claude Hollerich, together with the special secretaries of the synodal assembly: Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa and Father Riccardo Battocchio.
“The Synod is already changing our way of being and living the Church regardless of the October assembly,” Hollerich said, pointing to testimonies shared in the most recent reports sent by bishops’ conferences.
The Oct. 2-27 gathering of the Synod on Synodality will mark the end of the discernment phase of the Church’s synodal process, which Pope Francis opened in 2021.
Participants in the fall meeting, including Catholic bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople from around the world, will use the Instrumentum Laboris as a guide for their “conversations in the Spirit,” the method of discussion introduced at the 2023 assembly. They will also prepare and vote on the Synod on Synodality’s advisory final document, which will then be given to the pope, who decides the Church’s next steps and if he wishes to adopt the text as a papal document or to write his own.
The third phase of the synod — after “the consultation of the people of God” and “the discernment of the pastors” — will be “implementation,” according to organizers.
Prominent topics
The 2024 Instrumentum Laboris also addresses the need for transparency to restore the Church’s credibility in the face of sexual abuse of adults and minors and financial scandals.
“If the synodal Church wants to be welcoming,” the document reads, “then accountability and transparency must be at the core of its action at all levels, not only at the level of authority.”
It recommends effective lay involvement in pastoral and economic planning, the publication of annual financial statements certified by external auditors, annual summaries of safeguarding initiatives, the promotion of women to positions of authority, and periodic performance evaluations on those exercising a ministry or holding a position in the Church.
“These are points of great importance and urgency for the credibility of the synodal process and its implementation,” the document says.
The greater participation of women in all levels of the Church, a reform of the education of priests, and greater formation for all Catholics are also included in the text.
Bishops’ conferences, it says, noticed an untapped potential for women’s participation in many areas of Church life. “They also call for further exploration of ministerial and pastoral modalities that better express the charisms and gifts the Spirit pours out on women in response to the pastoral needs of our time,” the document states.
Formation in listening is identified as “an essential initial requirement” for Catholics, as well as how to engage in the practice of “conversation in the Spirit,” which was employed in the first session of the Synod on Synodality.
Pope Francis and delegates at the Synod on Synodality at the conclusion of the assembly on Oct. 28, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
The document says the need for formation has been one of the most universal and strong themes throughout the synodal process. Interreligious dialogue also is identified as an important aspect of the synodal journey.
On the topic of the liturgy, the Instrumentum Laboris says there was “a call for adequately trained lay men and women to contribute to preaching the Word of God, including during the celebration of the Eucharist.”
“It is necessary that the pastoral proposals and liturgical practices preserve and make ever more evident the link between the journey of Christian initiation and the synodal and missionary life of the Church,” the document says. “The appropriate pastoral and liturgical arrangements must be developed in the plurality of situations and cultures in which the local Churches are immersed …”
How it was drafted
Dubbed the “Instrumentum Laboris 2,” the document released Tuesday has been in preparation since early June when approximately 20 experts in theology, ecclesiology, and canon law held a closed-door meeting to analyze around 200 synod reports from bishops’ conferences and religious communities responding to what the Instrumentum Laboris called “the guiding question” of the next stage of the Synod on Synodality: “How to be a synodal Church in mission?”
After the 10-day gathering, “an initial version” of the text was drafted based on those reports and sent to around 70 people — priests, religious, and laypeople — “from all over the world, of various ecclesial sensitivities and from different theological ‘schools,’” for consultation, according to the synod website.
The XVI Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, together with consultants of the synod secretariat, finalized the document.
According to the working tool, soliciting new reports and feedback after the consultation phase ended is “consistent with the circularity characterizing the whole synodal process.”
“In preparation for the Second Session, and during its work, we continue to address this question: how can the identity of the synodal People of God in mission take concrete form in the relationships, paths and places where the everyday life of the Church takes place?” it says.
The document says “other questions that emerged during the journey are the subject of work that continues in other ways, at the level of the local Churches as well as in the ten Study Groups.”
Expectations for final session
According to the guiding document, the second session of the Synod on Synodality can “expect a further deepening of the shared understanding of synodality, a better focus on the practices of a synodal Church, and the proposal of some changes in canon law (there may be yet more significant and profound developments as the basic proposal is further assimilated and lived.)”
“Nonetheless,” it continues, “we cannot expect the answer to every question. In addition, other proposals will emerge along the way, on the path of conversion and reform that the Second Session will invite the whole Church to undertake.”
The Instrumentum Laboris says, “Synodality is not an end in itself … If the Second Session is to focus on certain aspects of synodal life, it does so with a view to greater effectiveness in mission.”
In its brief conclusion, the text states: “The questions that the Instrumentum Laboris asks are: how to be a synodal Church in mission; how to engage in deep listening and dialogue; how to be co-responsible in the light of the dynamism of our personal and communal baptismal vocation; how to transform structures and processes so that all may participate and share the charisms that the Spirit pours out on each for the common good; how to exercise power and authority as service. Each of these questions is a service to the Church and, through its action, to the possibility of healing the deepest wounds of our time.”
Vatican City, May 23, 2019 / 11:05 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Thursday condemned an exaggerated focus on plans and agendas which do not leave room for the spontaneous work of the Holy Spirit.
He cautioned against “those particular churches, those who do so much in the organization, plans, to have everything clear, all distributed.”
“It makes me suffer,” he said May 23, at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the opening of the general assembly of Caritas Internationalis.
In his homily, Francis warned against “the temptation of efficiency,” which he said causes people to think everything in the Church is going well as long as it is under control, “without shocks,” and “agenda always in order.”
“But the Lord does not proceed like this; in fact, to his followers he does not send an answer, he sends the Holy Spirit,” he underlined. “And the Spirit does not come bearing an agenda, it comes as fire.”
The pope also said that “Jesus does not want the Church to be a perfect model, which is pleased with its own organization and is capable of defending its good name.”
Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of over 160 Caritas organizations around the world. There are 450 delegates attending the general assembly, which takes place every four years, and is running in Rome May 23-28.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the archbishop of Manila, Philippines, is president of Caritas Internationalis. He told journalists May 23 that this general assembly has a record number of attendees, which he attributed, in part, to “the Francis effect.”
In his homily, Pope Francis urged the group of Caritas delegates to remember to listen to the small and the least, through whom Christ is revealed.
“It is always important to listen to everyone’s voice, especially the little ones and the least,” he said, adding that, “in the world, those who have more means speak more, but between us it cannot be like this, because God loves to reveal himself through the small and the least. And he asks everyone not to look down on anyone from the top.”
The pope also reflected on the day’s first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles. He explained that it tells of a great meeting in the history of the Church, when pagans were converting to the Christian faith, and the disciples were deciding if the pagan converts needed to follow the same norms of the ancient law as the others.
“It was a difficult decision to make,” Francis said, since Jesus had since ascended into Heaven, and he was no longer there among them to question directly about how to proceed.
From this passage, the pope said, “we learn three essential elements for the Church on its way: the humility of listening, the charism of the whole, the courage of renunciation.”
Thus wrote Mahatma Gandhi: “History is replete with instances of men, who, by dying with courage and compassion on their lips converted the hearts of their violent opponents”.
Thus wrote Mahatma Gandhi: “History is replete with instances of men, who, by dying with courage and compassion on their lips converted the hearts of their violent opponents”.