VATICAN CITY, 6 OCT 2008 (VIS) - The first General Congregation of the Twelfth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops was held This morning in the Synod Hall. The meeting was presided by the Pope, and 244 Synod Fathers were present.
In some brief opening remarks, Benedict XVI pointed out how "at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord speaks of two ways of building the house of one's life: on sand or on rock. Those who build on sand do so only on visible and tangible things: on success, career and money", he said.
"These seem to true reality, but one day they will pass away", he added. "We see this now with the fall of the great banks. Money disappears, it becomes nothing. And thus all these things which seem to be real and upon which we can rely, are in fact of secondary importance. ... Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, stable like heaven. Therefore we must change our concept of reality. A realist is one who recognises that the Word of God - this reality that appears so weak - is in fact the foundation of everything".
Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and president delegate on duty, also pronounced some brief words at the beginning of this morning's session.
Cardinal Marc Ouellet P.S.S., archbishop of Quebec, Canada, relator general of the Synod, then read out the "Relatio ante disceptationem," (report before the discussion) of which some extracts are given below:
"We are united in the Twelfth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to listen to what the Spirit says to today's Churches concerning 'the Word of God in the life and mission of the Church'", he said. "The goal of the Synod is primarily a pastoral and missionary one. It consists in, together, listening to the Word of God to discern how the Spirit and the Church aspire to respond to the gift of the Word made flesh through the love of the Holy Scriptures and the proclamation of the Kingdom of God to all humanity".
"The Synod will propose pastoral orientations to 'reinforce the practice of the encounter with the Word of God as the source of life', in focusing on the reception of Vatican Council II as concerns the Word of God in its relationship with renewed ecclesiology, ecumenism and dialogue with nations and religions".
"Thanks to the Trinitarian and Christocentric vision of Vatican Council II, the Church renewed consciousness in its own mystery and mission. ... In fact, the dogmatic Constitution 'Dei Verbum' marked a real turning point in the manner of dealing with Divine Revelation. Instead of privileging, as before, the noetic dimension of truths to be believed, the Council Fathers emphasised the dynamic and dialogic accent of Revelation as personal self-communication of God. Thus they laid the bases for a more vivid encounter and dialogue between God Who calls and His people who respond.
"This turning point was vastly welcomed as a decisive fact by theologians, exegetes and pastors. However, one generally recognises the fact that the Constitution 'Dei Verbum' was not sufficiently received and that the turning point still has not achieved all the fruits desired and expected in the life and mission of the Church. Taking into account the progress to date, the question should be: why has the model of personal communication not penetrated the Church's conscience, prayer, and pastoral practices as well as the theological and exegetical method? The Synod should propose concrete solutions to bridge the lacunae and find a remedy to the ignorance of the Scriptures which adds to today's difficulties in evangelisation.
"We must recognise, in fact, that the life of faith and the missionary impulse of Christians are deeply affected by socio-cultural phenomena such as secularisation, religious pluralism, globalisation and the enormous expansion in the communication media, with consequences such as: the growing gap between rich and poor, the blossoming of esoteric sects, the threats to peace, without forgetting the current assaults against human life and family.
"To these phenomena, we must add the Church's internal difficulties dealing with the transmission of faith in the family, the weaknesses in catechetical formation, the tensions between the ecclesial Magisterium and university-level theology, the internal crisis of exegesis and its relationship with theology, while in a more general way 'a similar separation sometimes exists between biblical scholars and the pastors and everyday people of the Christian community'.
"The Synod must face this great challenge of the transmission of faith in the Word of God today. In a pluralistic world, marked by relativism and esoterism, even the notion of Revelation poses questions and calls for clarification.
"'Convocatio, communio, missio'. Around these three keywords that translate the triple dimension (dynamic, personal and dialogic) of Christian Revelation, we will show the thematic structure of the 'Instrumentum laboris'. The Word of God convokes, it activates communion with God's plan through obedience to faith and sends the chosen people towards nations. This Word of Covenant culminates in Mary, who embraces the Word made flesh in faith, the Desired One of the nations. We will return to the three dimensions of the Word of Covenant as the Holy Spirit incarnated them in the history of salvation, the Holy Scriptures and ecclesial Tradition".
"To begin, we must start from the Mystery of a God that speaks", Cardinal Ouellet explained, "a God Who is Himself the Word and gives Himself to be known by humanity in many ways. Thanks to the Bible, humanity knows it has been called upon by God ; the Spirit helps it to listen and welcome the Word of God, thus becoming the 'Ecclesia', the community assembled by the Word. This community of faithful receives its identity and its mission from the Word of God that founds it, nourishes it and engages it to the service of the Kingdom of God".
"The Word of God, witnessed by Scripture, hence has different forms and harbours different levels of meaning. It shows God Himself Who speaks, His Divine Word, His creative and saving Word, and finally His Word made flesh in Jesus Christ, 'the mediator and the fullness of all revelation'".
"The written or transmitted Word of God is a word of dialogue and also a Trinitarian word, offered to man in Jesus Christ to introduce him to Trinitarian communion and to find his full identity. ... God speaks and, because of this, man appears as one-who-has-been-called. ... It is important to maintain this anthropological dimension of Revelation, because it plays an important role today in the hermeneutics of Biblical texts. Vatican Council II redefined the dialogic identity of man, starting from the Word of God in Christ".
"On the pastoral level", he asked, "should we not verify that this dialogic and filial anthropology founded on Christ occupies its proper place in the liturgy, in catechesis and in theological teaching?"
Going on to refer to the figure of the Virgin, he said: "Mary, perfectly accomplishes the divine vocation of humanity by her 'yes' to the Word of Covenant and her mission. Through her divine motherhood and her spiritual motherhood, Mary appears as the permanent model and form for the Church, like the first Church. Let us look briefly at the flesh-and-blood dimension of Mary, between the old and the new Covenant, who accomplishes the passage from Israel's faith to the Church's faith. Let us contemplate the Annunciation, which is the unsurpassable origin and model for self-communication with God and the experience of faith in the Church. This will be used as a paradigm to understand the dialogic identity of the Word of God in the Church".
In the section of his address dedicated to "Tradition, Scripture and Magisterium", the cardinal indicated that "in the living tradition of the Church, the Word of God takes first place: it is the living Christ. The written Word testifies to this. In effect, Scripture is a historical assertion and a canonical reference that are necessary for prayer, the life and the doctrine of the Church. However, Scripture is not all the Word, it is not totally identified with her, from which stems the importance of the distinction between the Word and the Book, like between the letter and the Spirit".
"Despite the complexities of the relationship between Scriptures, Tradition and Magisterium, the Holy Spirit assures a unity to the whole, especially if we maintain the responsorial and even nuptial dynamic of the relationship of the Covenant. In placing the ecclesial functions of Scriptures, Tradition and Magisterium within a Marian ecclesiology, we invite a change of the paradigm where the emphasis passes from the noetic dimension to the personal dimension of Revelation. The archetypical figure of Mary allows emphasising the dynamic dimension of the Word and the personal nature of faith as a gift of oneself, all while inviting the Church to live under the Word and open to all actions by the Holy Spirit".
The second part of Cardinal Ouellet's report, entitled "Communio" and dedicated to the Word of God in the life of the Church, began with a section on the sacred liturgy.
"The liturgy", he said, "is considered as an exercise of the priestly function of Jesus Christ, exercise in which the integral public worship is practised by the mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is to say the Head and His members. ... The primary subject of the holy liturgy is Christ Himself, addressing His People and offering Himself to His Father as sacrifice of love for the salvation of the world. Even if in the achievement of liturgical rites the Church seems to have a primary role, in truth, she only plays a subordinate role, at the service of the Word and He who speaks. Church-centricism is alien to the Council reforms".
"How to cultivate in the faithful the conscience that the Liturgy is the practice of the priestly function of Jesus Christ to whom the Church is associated as the beloved Spouse? What consequences should arise from the rediscovery of this original place of the Word on Biblical hermeneutics, on the celebration of the Eucharist and in particular on the place and function of the Liturgy of the Word, including the homily?"
On the subject of the ecclesial interpretation of the Word of God, the cardinal archbishop of Quebec posed the question whether "after several decades of concentration upon human meditations on the Scriptures, should we not find again the divine depth of the inspired text, without losing the precious acquisitions from new methodologies?
"We cannot overemphasise this point because the crisis of exegesis and theological hermeneutics has a profound effect on the spiritual life of the People of God and their trust in the Scriptures. It also affects ecclesial communion, because of the climate of often unhealthy tension between university theology and ecclesial Magisterium. Faced with this delicate situation, and without getting into the debates on schools, the Synod must give a direction, to heal relationships and favour integration of acquired knowledge from biblical and hermeneutical sciences into the ecclesial interpretation of Holy Scriptures".
"Missio: The Word of God in the Mission of the Church" was the title of the third part of the cardinal's remarks. "The heart of the mission of the Church is to evangelise", he said. "For the Church, evangelising means bringing the Good News into all the strata of humanity, and through its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new. ... When the Spirit speaks to the Church today, recalling the Scriptures, He calls her to a new testimony of love and unity to raise credibility in the Gospel faced with a world more attuned towards witnesses than doctors. ... Consequently, the witness of the Word of God demands that the missionary disciples be authentic witnesses of the primacy of love over science".
On the subject of ecumenism, the cardinal pointed out that since "the official entry of the Catholic Church in the ecumenical movement, Popes made a priority of the cause for Christian unity. ... Although the ecumenical encounters and dialogue have produced fruits of brotherhood, reconciliation and mutual aid, the situation today is characterised by a certain degree of discomfort that calls for a deeper conversion to 'spiritual ecumenism'".
Finally, turning to consider the question of dialogue between nations and religions, the cardinal observed that "the missionary activity of the Church is rooted, as we have said, in the mission of Christ and the Spirit that reveals and spreads the Trinitarian communion to all cultures in the world. ... The missionary activity of the Church testifies Her love for the whole Christ which includes all cultures. In Her efforts for evangelisation of cultures, this activity aims towards the unity of humanity in Jesus Christ, but all in respect and integration of all human values".
"Among the partners of the different dialogues of the Church with nations, the Jewish people occupy a unique place as the heir of the first Covenant, whose Holy Scriptures we share. This common heritage invites us to hope".
"Then come the faithful to the Muslim faith, they too rooted in the Biblical tradition, believers in the one God. Faced with secularisation and liberalism, they are allies in the defence of human life and in the assertion of the social importance of religion. ... Then finally come the humans 'from every race, language, people and nation', that are under the heavens, because the immolated Lamb shed His blood for all. The Word of God is especially destined to those who have never heard Him, because, in God's heart and in the missionary conscience of the Church, the last have the grace of being the first".
In his conclusion the cardinal remarked:
"Jesus always comes to the Church 'to bear witness to the Truth' and to communicate knowledge of God, which He possesses in full, to all those who believe in His name. ... Conscious of the ecclesiological renewal tied to the dynamic and dialogic concept of Revelation, we have suggested some paths to study the Word of God, beginning from Mary's faith as it extends through the life of the Church, the Liturgy, preaching, 'lectio divina', exegesis and theology.
"The application of this Marian paradigm presupposes a pneumatological study of the ecclesial tradition and the scriptural exegesis that account for the performative virtue of the Word of God, while distinguishing it carefully from the Eucharistic presence. More than a library for the erudite, the Bible is a temple where the Spouse of the Canticle listens to the promises of the Beloved and celebrates his kisses. ... This more dynamic rather than noetic perspective calls for a more contemplative theology, rooted in the liturgy, the Fathers and the lives of the saints, exegesis practised in a faith conforming to its object, and a philosophy of being and of love.
"It opens to a more fruitful spiritual reading of the Bible, to an ecclesial interpretation of the Scriptures and to a revitalisation of the missionary dialogue of the Church and Her love for man, imperfect image of God".
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