VATICAN CITY, OCT 3, 2005 (VIS) - This morning in the Synod Hall, the first General Congregation of the Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops was held. The meeting was presided by the Pope, and 241 Synod Fathers were present.
"One of the functions of collegiality," said Benedict XVI, addressing some words of greeting to the assembled prelates, "is to help us to know our own shortcomings, which we do not want to see. It is never easy to contemplate one's own defects, and others notice them better than we do."
In this context, he went on, "fraternal correction helps us become more open, .... (it helps) each person find his own truth, his own integrity as an instrument of God. All this calls for humility, not placing ourselves above others, but helping one another."
In this way "we can help ourselves with a great act of love, an act of true collegial affection. When someone is desperate, he cannot see how to keep going, he needs consolation, someone to be with him, to give him courage, to play the role of the consoling Holy Spirit."
"This is an invitation for us to carry out the work of the Holy Spirit Paraclete," said Benedict XVI, asking "how can we do so if we do not share together the faith that was not invented by any one of us, but is the faith of the Church?"
"The faith is the common foundation upon which we stand and work." The words of St. Paul contain "an invitation to always remain upon this foundation that precedes us, to maintain this shared faith. ... Each person must experience the faith in his or her own uniqueness, but always knowing that this faith precedes us."
The Holy Father concluded his greetings by encouraging the participants in the Synod to be "instruments of Christ," and to "enter into the thoughts and feelings of the Lord."
For his part, Cardinal Francis Arinze, president delegate on duty, also pronounced some brief words at the beginning of this morning's session. "We come," he said, "to reflect on a topic that touches the heartbeat of the life of the Church. In fact, in the Most Holy Eucharist, as Vatican Council II says, 'is contained the entire spiritual wealth of the Church, namely Christ Himself, our Easter.' The Eucharist 'stands at the center of the Church's life'."
Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, then reported on the activities of the council of the secretariat general in the period since the last Synod assembly, highlighting that it was John Paul II who began preparations for the Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly, and Benedict XVI who would conclude them.
Cardinal Angelo Scola, patriarch of Venice, Italy, relator general of the Synod, then read out the "Relatio ante disceptationem," (report before the discussion) of which some extracts are given below:
"After referring to Eucharistic wonder, the Introduction ('Eucharist: the freedom of God encounters the freedom of man') emphasizes the connection of the Eucharist with evangelization and with the 'ratio sacramentalis' of the Revelation. In chapter one ('The Novum of Christian Worship') I will try to highlight the new aspects of Christian worship. Chapter two ('Eucharistic action') will deal with Eucharistic action and its distinctive characteristics, and the essential link between 'ars celebrandi' and 'actuosa participatio.' Chapter three ('Anthropological, cosmological and social dimensions of the Eucharist') will seek to show how the Eucharist intrinsically contains an anthropological, cosmological and social dimension. The Conclusion ('Eucharistic presence in the ordeals of the present day') will offer a brief summary of the subjects discussed, ending with a brief expression of best wishes for our work."
"In the final analysis, the decrease in Eucharistic wonder depends on the limitations and the sins of the individual. Often however, this finds fertile terrain in the fact that the Christian community celebrating the Eucharist is distant from reality. It lives on an abstract plane and no longer addresses the real man, his feelings, his work, his rest, his need for unity, truth, goodness, beauty. ... The Synodal Assembly will need to look into this state of affairs carefully and suggest some possible remedies."
"Because of its nature as the source of 'logiken latreian,' ritual Eucharistic action also becomes objectively the most essential and decisive of all human actions. In fact, in the Eucharistic rite the definitive meaning of history, and thereby its truth, erupts forth at a precise moment in time. ... Considering the rite in all its fullness makes it possible to avoid any kind of fragmentation or juxtaposition between Eucharistic action and the needs of the new evangelization, which range from announcing and bearing witness in all fields of human life, to the necessary anthropological, cosmological and social implications that the Eucharist objectively brings forth. It also allows the Christian community to maintain, at the same time, close fidelity to the liturgy, and attentive flexibility to the requirements of inculturation."
"The Eucharistic celebration makes the Church. ... It is an act of worship called to express the unique Paschal event in an exceptional way. ... This Sacrament was given for the communion of men in Christ. ... Outside of this Eucharistic and sacramental communion the Church is not complete."
"The Bishop does not preside the Eucharist merely for juridical reasons, because he is the 'head' of the local church, but rather out of faithfulness to the Lord's own commandment, Who entrusted the memorial of His Easter to Peter and the Apostles. ... Communion with the bishop is the condition that legitimizes the Eucharistic celebration in favor of the people of God."
"A second confirmation of how the Eucharistic celebration actually makes the Church, lies in the radical differences between Christian, pagan and even Jewish places of worship. While the pagan temple and Jewish synagogue are characterized by the presence of the divinity, and because of this presence considered sacred and sacralized, the 'place' of Christian worship consists, in a certain sense, in the very act of celebrating the mystery."
"One must underline the substantial communion of faith between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church on the theme of the Eucharist and the priesthood, communion that is destined to grow through greater and deeper reciprocal understanding of the Eucharistic celebration and divine liturgy. We should also welcome positively the new climate on the Eucharist in those ecclesial communities that came into being at the time of the Reformation. In different degrees and with few exceptions, even these communities always underline the importance of the Eucharist as the key element in dialogue and in ecumenical practice. ... Can 'inter-communion' of the faithful belonging to different Churches and ecclesial communities constitute an adequate instrument to favor the path towards Christian unity? The answer depends upon careful consideration of the nature of the Eucharistic action in all of its fullness as 'mysterium fidei'."
"In the historical evolution going from the Last Supper of Jesus Christ to the Eucharist, off which the Church still lives today, the essential and permanent nucleus of ritual comes from the close bond between the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist."
"Eucharistic action's characteristic nature of being a gift - which implies the communication of the freedom of the 'Deus Trinitas' in Jesus Christ to the freedom of men - requires that its gratuitous nature never be misunderstood. Even if its absence provokes great suffering, this does not mean that the faithful or the people of God have any right to the Eucharist. ... For the same reason, the gift of the Eucharist can never be idolatrously 'possessed' by man; it makes no allowance for a quasi-Gnostic pretension to dominatation."
"The problem of the lack of priests must be faced with courage. ... This state of things has given rise to a considerable increase of 'Sunday assemblies awaiting a priest'. ... Local Churches are never deprived of the Eucharist. For this reason it is good pastoral practice to encourage as much participation as possible in the Eucharist in one of the communities of the diocese, even where this requires a certain degree of sacrifice. ... Wherever a certain amount of mobility is not possible, the appropriateness of these Assemblies will be seen in their capacity to accentuate in the people the ardent desire for the Eucharist."
"In order to make up for the lack of priests, some, guided by the principle of 'salus animarum suprema lex,' advance the request for the ordination of married faithful of proven faith and virtue, so-called 'viri probati.' The request is often accompanied by the positive recognition of the validity of the age-old discipline of priestly celibacy. However, this law should not, they affirm, prevent the Church from being supplied with an adequate number of ordained ministers, when the scarcity of candidates to celibate priesthood is assuming extremely grave proportions. It is superfluous to reiterate, in this context, the profound theological motives which have led the Latin Church to unite the conferring of ministerial priesthood to the charism of celibacy. Rather, the following question presents itself: are such a choice and such practice pastorally valid, even in extreme cases such as those mentioned above? It seems reasonable to answer positively. Being intimately tied to the Eucharist, ordained priesthood participates in its nature of a gift and cannot be the object of a right. ... It has become very difficult to ascertain the ideal number of priests in the Church, because the Church is not a 'business' to be equipped with a designated quota of team managers. ... Therefore, the proposals made in this Synodal Assembly to identify the criteria for an adequate distribution of clergy in the world, will be very useful. In this area, the journey still seems very long."
"The radical difference between the One who gives Himself and the one who receives the gift ... opens the faithful to the consciousness of the 'mysterium tremendum' of the Eucharist. One cannot approach it without perceiving one's own unworthiness and preparing oneself by asking for the forgiveness of one's sins. ... For this reason, adequate Eucharistic catechesis can never be separated from the idea of a penitential journey. It is in the attitude of confession that the venerable practice of the Eucharistic fast has its roots. It would be useful to dedicate some reflection to this subject in this assembly."
"No one can ignore the widespread tendency of divorced and remarried people to take part in Eucharistic communion, despite what the teaching of the Church indicates. ... Those divorced and remarried people need to be supported by the whole Christian community in the knowledge that they are not excluded from ecclesial communion. Their participation in the Eucharistic celebration permits, in all cases, that spiritual communion which, if correctly lived, mirrors the sacrifice of Jesus Christ Himself. ... During the present Assembly we must further delve into and pay great attention to complex and diverse cases, the objective methods for verifying the hypothesis of nullity of canonical marriage."
"The conscious, active and fruitful participation of the People of God - above all on Sundays - actually coincides with adequate celebration of the holy mysteries. ... It is a question of obeying the Eucharistic rite in its extraordinary completeness, recognizing its canonical and constitutive strength because it has assured, and not by mere chance, the existence of the Holy Church of God for two thousand years."
"The consideration of the Eucharistic rite as a sacramental action that is, by itself, capable of presenting the Eucharist as source and summit of the life and mission of the Church, would not be complete if one did not show its transforming strength in the personal and community life of the faithful."
"The Eucharistic celebration represents the Paschal Event which, of itself, creates the conditions for communicating it to all human cultures. ... In order to express the intercultural dimension of the Eucharist ... the use of the Latin language is valuable."
"If the Eucharist is the gift of the sacramental encounter between humanity and the God of Jesus Christ who makes us 'truly free', then such an event has by its very nature a fundamental anthropological dimension."
"The community dimension of Eucharistic action allows Christians not to forget that the creation-cosmos is a common and universal good and that commitment thereto extends not only to the demands of the present, but also to those of the future."
"To gather every Sunday, anywhere on earth, to have part of the same Body and the same Blood of Christ imposes the duty of a tenacious battle against all forms of marginalization and economic, social and political injustice to which our brothers and sisters - especially women and children - are submitted."
"The marvels of divine grace are enclosed in the holy species of the bread and the wine transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ. ... The Church celebrates these mysteries, is nourished by this heavenly food and adores Him, recognizing in the sacramental Jesus the Way to the Truth and to Life."
SE/FIRST CONGREGATION/... VIS 20051003 (2180)
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