Vatican City, 3 October 2015 (VIS) -
“When life proves difficult and demanding, we can be tempted to
step back, turn away and withdraw, perhaps even in the name of
prudence and realism, and thus flee the responsibility of doing our
part as best we can”, said the Holy Father during his inauguration
of the prayer vigil for the Synod of Bishops, held during the night
of Saturday 3 October. Organised by the Italian Episcopal Conference,
large numbers of faithful and pilgrims participated in St. Peter's
Square.
The Pope spoke about the human fear
that the prophet Elijah experienced and how he got up and fled for
his life, and recalled that “just a year ago, in this same Square,
we invoked the Holy Spirit and asked that - in discussing the theme
of the family - the Synod Fathers might listen attentively to one
another, with their gaze fixed on Jesus, the definitive Word of the
Father and the criterion by which everything is to be measured. This
evening, our prayer cannot be otherwise. For as Patriarch Athenagoras
Metropolitan Ignatius IV Hazim reminded us, without the Holy Spirit
God is far off, Christ remains in the past, the Church becomes a mere
organisation, authority becomes domination, mission becomes
propaganda, worship becomes mystique, Christian life the morality of
slaves”.
“Let us pray that the Synod which
opens tomorrow will show how the experience of marriage and family is
rich and humanly fulfilling”, he continued. “May the Synod
acknowledge, esteem, and proclaim all that is beautiful, good and
holy about that experience. May it embrace situations of
vulnerability and hardship: war, illness, grief, wounded
relationships and brokenness, which create distress, resentment and
separation. May it remind these families, and every family, that the
Gospel is always 'good news' which once again enables us to start
over. From the treasury of the Church’s living tradition may the
Fathers draw words of comfort and hope for families called in our own
day to build the future of the ecclesial community and the city of
man”.
The Pope emphasised that “every
family is always a light, however faint, amid the darkness of this
world. Jesus’ own human experience took shape in the heart of a
family, where he lived for thirty years. His family was like any
number of others, living in an obscure village on the outskirts of
the Empire”.
He gave the example of Charles de
Foucauld who “came to understand that we do not grow in the love of
God by avoiding the entanglement of human relations. For in loving
others, we learn to love God, in stooping down to help our neighbour,
we are lifted up to God. Through his fraternal closeness and his
solidarity with the poor and the abandoned, he came to understand
that it is they who evangelise us, they who help us to grow in
humanity”.
The Holy Father encouraged the faithful
to enter into the mystery of the family in order to be able to
understand it. “The family is a place where evangelical holiness is
lived out in the most ordinary conditions. There we are formed by the
memory of past generations and we put down roots which enable us to
go far. The family is a place of discernment, where we learn to
recognise God’s plan for our lives and to embrace it with trust. It
is a place of gratuitousness. of discreet fraternal presence and
solidarity, a place where we learn to step out of ourselves and
accept others, to forgive and to be feel forgiven”.
“Let us set out once more from
Nazareth for a Synod which, more than speaking about the family, can
learn from the family, readily acknowledging its dignity, its
strength and its value, despite all its problems and difficulties. In
the 'Galilee of the nations' of our own time, we will rediscover the
richness and strength of a Church which is a mother, ever capable of
giving and nourishing life, accompanying it with devotion,
tenderness, and moral strength. For unless we can unite compassion
with justice, we will end up being needlessly severe and deeply
unjust”.
“A Church which is family is also
able to show the closeness and love of a father ... a Church of
children who see themselves as brothers and sisters, will never end
up considering anyone simply as a burden, a problem, an expense, a
concern or a risk. Other persons are essentially a gift, and always
remain so, even when they walk different paths. The Church is an open
house, far from outward pomp, hospitable in the simplicity of her
members. … This Church can indeed light up the darkness felt by so
many men and women. She can credibly point them towards the goal and
walk at their side, precisely because she herself first experienced
what it is to be endlessly reborn in the merciful heart of the
Father”, Francis concluded.
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