Below is the
full text of the homily given by Pope Benedict XVI during the Holy Mass for the
opening of the XIII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the
New Evangelisation.
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE BENEDICT XVI
Given At The
HOLY MASS FOR THE OPENING OF THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS
Dear Brother
Bishops,
Dear brothers
and sisters,
With this solemn
concelebration we open the thirteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of
Bishops on the theme The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the
Christian Faith. This theme reflects a
programmatic direction for the life of the Church, its members, families, its
communities and institutions. And this
outline is reinforced by the fact that it coincides with the beginning of the
Year of Faith, starting on 11 October, on the fiftieth anniversary of the
opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. I give a cordial and grateful welcome to you
who have come to be part of the Synodal Assembly, in particular to the
Secretary-General of the Synod of Bishops, and to his colleagues. I salute the fraternal delegates of the other
churches and ecclesial communities as well as all present, inviting them to
accompany in daily prayer the deliberations which will take place over the next
three weeks.
The readings for
this Sunday’s Liturgy of the Word propose to us two principal points of
reflection: the first on matrimony, which I will touch shortly; and the second
on Jesus Christ, which I will discuss now.
We do not have time to comment upon the passage from the Letter to the
Hebrews but, at the beginning of this Synodal Assembly, we ought to welcome the
invitation to fix our gaze upon the Lord Jesus, “crowned with glory and honour,
because of the suffering of death (2:9).
The word of God places us before the glorious One who was crucified, so
that our whole lives, and in particular the commitment of this Synodal session,
will take place in the sight of him and in the light of his mystery. In every time and place, evangelization always
has as its starting and finishing points Jesus Christ, the Son of God (cf. Mk
1:1); and the Crucifix is the supremely distinctive sign of him who announces
the Gospel: a sign of love and peace, a call to conversion and
reconciliation. My dear Brother Bishops,
starting with ourselves, let us fix our gaze upon him and let us be purified by
his grace.
I would now like
briefly to examine the new evangelization, and its relation to ordinary
evangelization and the mission ad Gentes.
The Church exists to evangelize.
Faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ’s command, his disciples went out to
the whole world to announce the Good News, spreading Christian communities
everywhere. With time, these became
well-organized churches with many faithful.
At various times in history, divine providence has given birth to a
renewed dynamism in Church’s evangelizing activity. We need only think of the evangelization of
the Anglo-Saxon peoples or the Slavs, or the transmission of the faith on the
continent of America, or the missionary undertakings among the peoples of
Africa, Asia and Oceania. It is against
this dynamic background that I like to look at the two radiant figures that I
have just proclaimed Doctors of the Church, Saint John of Avila and Saint
Hildegard of Bingen. Even in our own
times, the Holy Spirit has nurtured in the Church a new effort to announce the
Good News, a pastoral and spiritual dynamism which found a more universal
expression and its most authoritative impulse in the Second Vatican Ecumenical
Council. Such renewed evangelical dynamism produces a beneficent influence on
the two specific “branches” developed by it, that is, on the one hand the
Missio ad Gentes or announcement of the Gospel to those who do not yet know
Jesus Christ and his message of salvation, and on the other the New
Evangelization, directed principally at those who, though baptized, have
drifted away from the Church and live without reference to the Christian
life. The Synodal Assembly which opens
today is dedicated to this new evangelization, to help these people encounter
the Lord, who alone who fills our existence with deep meaning and peace; and to
favour the rediscovery of the faith, that source of grace which brings joy and
hope to personal, family and social life.
Obviously, such a special focus must not diminish either missionary
efforts in the strict sense or the ordinary activity of evangelization in our
Christian communities, as these are three aspects of the one reality of evangelization
which complement and enrich each other.
The theme of
marriage, found in the Gospel and the first reading, deserves special
attention. The message of the word of
God may be summed up in the expression found in the Book of Genesis and taken up
by Jesus himself: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves
to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24; Mk 10:7-8). What does this word say to us today? It seems to me that it invites us to be more
aware of a reality, already well known but not fully appreciated: that
matrimony is a Gospel in itself, a Good News for the world of today, especially
the dechristianized world. The union of
a man and a woman, their becoming “one flesh” in charity, in fruitful and
indissoluble love, is a sign that speaks of God with a force and an eloquence
which in our days has become greater because unfortunately, for various
reasons, marriage, in precisely the oldest regions evangelized, is going
through a profound crisis. And it is not
by chance. Marriage is linked to faith,
but not in a general way. Marriage, as a
union of faithful and indissoluble love, is based upon the grace that comes
from the triune God, who in Christ loved us with a faithful love, even to the
Cross. Today we ought to grasp the full
truth of this statement, in contrast to the painful reality of many marriages
which, unhappily, end badly. There is a
clear link between the crisis in faith and the crisis in marriage. And, as the Church has said and witnessed for
a long time now, marriage is called to be not only an object but a subject of
the new evangelization. This is already
being seen in the many experiences of communities and movements, but its
realization is also growing in dioceses and parishes, as shown in the recent
World Meeting of Families.
One of the
important ideas of the renewed impulse that the Second Vatican Council gave to
evangelization is that of the universal call to holiness, which in itself
concerns all Christians (cf. Lumen Gentium, 39-42). The saints are the true actors in
evangelization in all its expressions.
In a special way they are even pioneers and bringers of the new
evangelization: with their intercession and the example of lives attentive to
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they show the beauty of the Gospel to those
who are indifferent or even hostile, and they invite, as it were tepid
believers, to live with the joy of faith, hope and charity, to rediscover the
taste for the word of God and for the sacraments, especially for the bread of
life, the Eucharist. Holy men and women
bloom among the generous missionaries who announce the Good News to
non-Christians, in the past in mission countries and now in any place where
there are non-Christians. Holiness is
not confined by cultural, social, political or religious barriers. Its language, that of love and truth, is
understandable to all people of good will and it draws them to Jesus Christ,
the inexhaustible source of new life.
At this point,
let us pause for a moment to appreciate the two saints who today have been
added to the elect number of Doctors of the Church. Saint John of Avila lived in the sixteenth
century. A profound expert on the sacred
Scriptures, he was gifted with an ardent missionary spirit. He knew how to penetrate in a uniquely
profound way the mysteries of the redemption worked by Christ for
humanity. A man of God, he united
constant prayer to apostolic action. He
dedicated himself to preaching and to the more frequent practice of the
sacraments, concentrating his commitment on improving the formation of
candidates for the priesthood, of religious and of lay people, with a view to a
fruitful reform of the Church.
Saint Hildegard
of Bingen, an important female figure of the twelfth century, offered her
precious contribution to the growth of the Church of her time, employing the
gifts received from God and showing herself to be a woman of brilliant
intelligence, deep sensitivity and recognized spiritual authority. The Lord granted her a prophetic spirit and
fervent capacity to discern the signs of the times. Hildegard nurtured an evident love of
creation, and was learned in medicine, poetry and music. Above all, she maintained a great and
faithful love for Christ and his Church.
This summary of
the ideal in Christian life, expressed in the call to holiness, draws us to
look with humility at the fragility, even sin, of many Christians, as
individuals and communities, which is a great obstacle to evangelization and to
recognizing the force of God that, in faith, meets human weakness. Thus, we cannot speak about the new
evangelization without a sincere desire for conversion. The best path to the new evangelization is to
let ourselves be reconciled with God and with each other (cf. 2 Cor 5:20). Solemnly purified, Christians can regain a
legitimate pride in their dignity as children of God, created in his image and
redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and they can experience his joy
in order to share it with everyone, both near and far.
Dear brothers
and sisters, let us entrust the work of the Synod meeting to God, sustained by
the communion of saints, invoking in particular the intercession of great
evangelizers, among whom, with much affection, we ought to number Blessed Pope
John Paul II, whose long pontificate was an example of the new
evangelization. Let us place ourselves
under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the New
Evangelization. With her let us invoke a
new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that from on high he may illumine the Synodal
assembly and make it fruitful for the Church’s journey today, in our time.
Amen.
Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 7 October 2012
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