Vatican City, 20 June 2015 (VIS) –
The members of the Catholic Biblical Federation were received last
Friday by the Holy Father, on the occasion of their tenth plenary
session to reflect on the Sacred Scripture as a source of
evangelisation, and on the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation
of the dogmatic Constitution on the Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum.
The Pope handed those present a written discourse, published by the
VIS on the same day, and gave a brief improvised address, a summary
of which is offered below.
“The surprises of God, that help us
to realise that all our plans all our thoughts and many things,
before the living Word of God, collapse and crumble. When a Church
closes up in herself and forgets that she has been sent to announce
the Gospel, that is, the Good News, to move hearts with the kerygma,
then she ages and weakens. And, I would add, she sickens and dies”.
“I have heard it said many times that
the diocese in northern Africa at the time of St. Augustine were dead
Churches. No! There are two ways of dying: dying closed in oneself or
dying by giving life as witness. And a Church that has the courage –
the parrhesia – to carry forward the Word of God without shame is
on the road to martyrdom”.
“In the first reading of today's Mass
we have heard that Paul tell of the things he suffered, to 'boast'.
'But whatever anyone else dares to boast of – I am speaking as a
fool – I also dare to boast of that'. The outline is this. But if
St. Paul had stayed there, in one of the churches, like that of
Corinth, and only there, he would not have suffered all that he says.
Why? Because he was an outgoing man – when he saw that things were
going well, he handed over to another and went on. He is a model”.
“At the end he says this beautiful
phrase: after 'boasting' of his many journeys, the many times he was
whipped, the time he was stoned, all of that, 'if I must boast, I
will boast of the things that show my weakness'. In another passage –
you Biblical scholars must know it – he says, 'I will boast all the
more gladly of my weaknesses'. Paul's third boast is not vanity: 'But
far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ'. This is his strength. And this is an outgoing Church, a
martyrial Church. She is a Church who takes to the street, who walks.
But I prefer a Church wounded in an accident rather than a Church
that sickens from being closed up in herself. With this parrhesia and
this hypomone; that patience that is shouldering situations, but also
the tenderness of carrying the injured faithful on one's shoulders,
that have been given to her. A pastoral Church. Only the Word of God
and, alongside the Word, the Eucharist. The brothers who gather to
praise the Lord with the weakness of bread and wine, the Body of the
Lord, the Blood of the Lord”.
“The Word of God is not something
that makes life easy. No, no. It always places us in difficulty! If
someone bears it with sincerity, it places him in difficulty, it
embarrasses him many times. But it is necessary to tell the truth,
with tenderness, with that shouldering of situations and of people.
It can be understood as a fraternal respect that knows how to
'caress'”.
“One of the things that worry me is
the functional proclamation of the Word of God in homilies. Please,
do everything to help your brothers – deacons, priests and bishops
– to give the Word of God in their homilies, so that it reaches the
heart. A thought, an image, a sentiment can also reach... but the
Word of God must arrive. There are many who are capable, but they
make the mistake of offering a beautiful theological dissertation. …
The Word of God is a sacramental! For Luther it is a sacrament, that
acts also ex opere operato (effective in and of itself, Ed.). Then
the tendency was more towards the Tridentine view, that of ex opere
operantis (receiving its efficacy through the mediator, Ed.).
Theologians then found the Word of God to be somewhere between; part
ex opere operato, part ex opere operantis. It is a sacramental.
Discourses are not sacramental, they are discourses done well. But in
the homilies may there be the Word of God, as it touches the heart”.
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