TO THE PARTICIPANTS
IN THE ECCLESIAL DIOCESAN CONVENTION OF ROME
Basilica of St John Lateran
Monday, 6 June 2005
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I
very willingly accepted the invitation to introduce our Diocesan
Convention with a Reflection, first of all because it gives me the
chance to meet you, of having direct contact with you, and then too,
because I can help you acquire a deeper understanding of the sense and
purpose of the pastoral journey the Church of Rome is making.
I
greet with affection each one of you, Bishops, priests, deacons, men
and women religious, and in particular you lay people and families who
consciously take on those duties of responsibility and Christian witness
that have their root in the sacrament of Baptism and, for those who are
married, in the sacrament of Marriage. I cordially thank the Cardinal
Vicar and the couple, Luca and Adriana Pasquale, for their words on
behalf of you all.
This Convention and the
guidelines it will provide for the pastoral year are a new stage on the
journey begun by the Church of Rome, based on the Diocesan Synod, with
the "City Mission", desired by our deeply loved Pope John Paul II in
preparation for the Great Jubilee of 2000.
In that
Mission all the components of our Diocese - parishes, religious
communities, associations and movements - were mobilized, not only for a
mission to the people of Rome, but to be themselves "a people of God in
mission", putting into practice John Paul II's felicitous expression:
"The parish must seek itself outside itself" and find itself, that is,
in the places where the people live. So it was that during the City
Mission thousands of Christians of Rome, mainly lay people, became
missionaries and took the word of faith first to the families in the
various districts of the city, and then to the different workplaces,
hospitals, schools and universities, and the environments of culture and
leisure time.
After the Holy Year, my beloved
Predecessor asked you not to stop on this journey and not to lose the
apostolic energies kindled or the fruits of grace gathered. Therefore,
since 2001, the fundamental pastoral policy of the Diocese has been to
give the mission a permanent form, and to impress a more decidedly
missionary approach on the life and activities of the parishes and of
every other ecclesial situation.
I want to tell you
first of all that I fully intend to confirm this decision: indeed, it
is proving to be more and more necessary. There are no alternatives to
it in a social and cultural context in which many forces are working to
distance us from the faith and from Christian life.
For
two years now the missionary commitment of the Church of Rome has
focused above all on the family. This is not only because today this
fundamental human reality is subjected to a multitude of problems and
threats and is therefore especially in need of evangelization and
practical support, but also because Christian families constitute a
crucial resource for education in the faith, for the edification of the
Church as communion and for her ability to be a missionary presence in
the most varied situations of life, as well as to act as a Christian
leaven in the widespread culture and social structures.
We
will also continue along these lines in the coming pastoral year, and
so the theme of our Convention is "Family and Christian community:
formation of the person and transmission of the faith".
The
assumption from which it is necessary to set out, if we are to
understand the family mission in the Christian community and its tasks
of forming the person and transmitting the faith, is always that of the
meaning of marriage and the family in the plan of God, Creator and
Saviour. This will therefore be the focus of my Reflection this evening
and I will refer to the teaching of the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (Part II, nn. 12-16).
Marriage
and the family are not in fact a chance sociological construction, the
product of particular historical and financial situations. On the other
hand, the question of the right relationship between the man and the
woman is rooted in the essential core of the human being and it is only
by starting from here that its response can be found.
In
other words, it cannot be separated from the ancient but ever new human
question: Who am I? What is a human being? And this question, in turn,
cannot be separated from the question about God: Does God exist? Who is
God? What is his face truly like?
The Bible gives
one consequential answer to these two queries: the human being is
created in the image of God, and God himself is love. It is therefore
the vocation to love that makes the human person an authentic image of
God: man and woman come to resemble God to the extent that they become
loving people.
This fundamental connection between
God and the person gives rise to another: the indissoluble connection
between spirit and body: in fact, the human being is a soul that finds
expression in a body and a body that is enlivened by an immortal spirit.
The body, therefore, both male and female, also
has, as it were, a theological character: it is not merely a body; and
what is biological in the human being is not merely biological but is
the expression and the fulfilment of our humanity.
Likewise,
human sexuality is not juxtaposed to our being as person but part of
it. Only when sexuality is integrated within the person does it
successfully acquire meaning.
Thus, these two
links, between the human being with God and in the human being, of the
body with the spirit, give rise to a third: the connection between the
person and the institution.
Indeed, the totality of
the person includes the dimension of time, and the person's "yes" is a
step beyond the present moment: in its wholeness, the "yes" means
"always", it creates the space for faithfulness. Only in this space can
faith develop, which provides a future and enables children, the fruit
of love, to believe in human beings and in their future in difficult
times.
The freedom of the "yes", therefore, reveals
itself to be freedom capable of assuming what is definitive: the
greatest expression of freedom is not the search for pleasure without
ever coming to a real decision; this apparent, permanent openness seems
to be the realization of freedom, but it is not true. The true
expression of freedom is the capacity to choose a definitive gift in
which freedom, in being given, is fully rediscovered.
In
practice, the personal and reciprocal "yes" of the man and the woman
makes room for the future, for the authentic humanity of each of them.
At the same time, it is an assent to the gift of a new life.
Therefore,
this personal "yes" must also be a publicly responsible "yes", with
which the spouses take on the public responsibility of fidelity, also
guaranteeing the future of the community. None of us, in fact, belongs
exclusively to himself or herself: one and all are therefore called to
take on in their inmost depths their own public responsibility.
Marriage
as an institution is thus not an undue interference of society or of
authority. The external imposition of form on the most private reality
of life is instead an intrinsic requirement of the covenant of conjugal
love and of the depths of the human person.
Today,
the various forms of the erosion of marriage, such as free unions and
"trial marriage", and even pseudo-marriages between people of the same
sex, are instead an expression of anarchic freedom that are wrongly made
to pass as true human liberation. This pseudo-freedom is based on a
trivialization of the body, which inevitably entails the trivialization
of the person. Its premise is that the human being can do to himself or
herself whatever he or she likes: thus, the body becomes a secondary
thing that can be manipulated, from the human point of view, and used as
one likes. Licentiousness, which passes for the discovery of the body
and its value, is actually a dualism that makes the body despicable,
placing it, so to speak, outside the person's authentic being and
dignity.
The truth about marriage and the family,
deeply rooted in the truth about the human being, has been actuated in
the history of salvation, at whose heart lie the words: "God loves his
people". The biblical revelation, in fact, is first and foremost the
expression of a history of love, the history of God's Covenant with
humankind.
Consequently, God could take the history
of love and of the union of a man and a woman in the covenant of
marriage as a symbol of salvation history. The inexpressible fact, the
mystery of God's love for men and women, receives its linguistic form
from the vocabulary of marriage and the family, both positive and
negative: indeed, God's drawing close to his people is presented in the
language of spousal love, whereas Israel's infidelity, its idolatry, is
designated as adultery and prostitution.
In the New
Testament God radicalizes his love to the point that he himself
becomes, in his Son, flesh of our flesh, a true man. In this way, God's
union with humankind acquired its supreme, irreversible form.
Thus,
the blue-print of human love is also definitely set out, that
reciprocal "yes" which cannot be revoked: it does not alienate men and
women but sets them free from the different forms of alienation in
history in order to restore them to the truth of creation.
The
sacramental quality that marriage assumes in Christ, therefore, means
that the gift of creation has been raised to the grace of redemption.
Christ's grace is not an external addition to human nature, it does not
do violence to men and women but sets them free and restores them,
precisely by raising them above their own limitations. And just as the
Incarnation of the Son of God reveals its true meaning in the Cross, so
genuine human love is self-giving and cannot exist if it seeks to detach
itself from the Cross.
Dear brothers and sisters,
this profound link between God and the human being, between God's love
and human love, is also confirmed in certain tendencies and negative
developments that have weighed heavily on us all. In fact, the
debasement of human love, the suppression of the authentic capacity for
loving, is turning out in our time to be the most suitable and effective
weapon to drive God away from men and women, to distance God from the
human gaze and heart.
Similarly, the desire to
"liberate" nature from God leads to losing sight of the reality of
nature itself, including the nature of the human being, reducing it to a
conglomeration of functions so as to have them available at will to
build what is presumed to be a better world and presumed to be a happier
humanity. Instead, the Creator's design is destroyed, and so is the
truth of our nature.
Even in the begetting of
children marriage reflects its divine model, God's love for man. In man
and woman, fatherhood and motherhood, like the body and like love,
cannot be limited to the biological: life is entirely given only when,
by birth, love and meaning are also given, which make it possible to say
yes to this life.
From this point it becomes clear
how contrary to human love, to the profound vocation of the man and the
woman, are the systematic closure of a union to the gift of life and
even more, the suppression or manipulation of newborn life.
No
man and no woman, however, alone and single-handed, can adequately
transmit to children love and the meaning of life. Indeed, to be able to
say to someone "your life is good, even though I may not know your
future", requires an authority and credibility superior to what
individuals can assume on their own.
Christians
know that this authority is conferred upon that larger family which God,
through his Son Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit, created
in the story of humanity, that is, upon the Church. Here they recognize
the work of that eternal, indestructible love which guarantees permanent
meaning to the life of each one of us, even if the future remains
unknown.
For this reason, the edification of each
individual Christian family fits into the context of the larger family
of the Church, which supports it and carries it with her and guarantees
that it has, and will also have in the future, the meaningful "yes" of
the Creator. And the Church is reciprocally built up by the family, a
"small domestic church", as the Second Vatican Council called it (Lumen Gentium, n. 11; Apostolicam Actuositatem, n. 11), rediscovering an ancient Patristic expression (cf. St John Chrysostom, In Genesim Serm. VI, 2; VII, 1).
In the same sense, Familiaris Consortio
affirms that "Christian marriage... constitutes the natural setting in
which the human person is introduced into the great family of the
Church" (n. 15).
There is an obvious consequence to
all this: the family and the Church - in practice, parishes and other
forms of Ecclesial Community - are called to collaborate more closely in
the fundamental task that consists, inseparably, in the formation of
the person and the transmission of the faith.
We
know well that for an authentic educational endeavour, communicating a
correct theory or doctrine does not suffice. Something far greater and
more human is needed: the daily experienced closeness that is proper to
love, whose most propitious place is above all the family community, but
also in a parish, movement or ecclesial association, in which there are
people who care for their brothers and sisters because they love them
in Christ, particularly children and young people, but also adults, the
elderly, the sick and families themselves. The great Patron of
educators, St John Bosco, reminded his spiritual sons that "education is
something of the heart and that God alone is its master" (Epistolario, 4, 209).
The
central figure in the work of educating, and especially in education in
the faith, which is the summit of the person's formation and is his or
her most appropriate horizon, is specifically the form of witness. This
witness becomes a proper reference point to the extent that the person
can account for the hope that nourishes his life (cf. I Pt 3: 15) and is
personally involved in the truth that he proposes.
On
the other hand, the witness never refers to himself but to something,
or rather, to Someone greater than he, whom he has encountered and whose
dependable goodness he has sampled. Thus, every educator and witness
finds an unequalled model in Jesus Christ, the Father's great witness,
who said nothing about himself but spoke as the Father had taught him
(cf. Jn 8: 28).
This is the reason why prayer,
which is personal friendship with Christ and contemplation in him of the
face of the Father, is indispensably at the root of the formation of
the Christian and of the transmission of the faith. The same is, of
course, also true for all our missionary commitment, and particularly
for the pastoral care of families: therefore, may the Family of Nazareth
be for our families and our communities the object of constant and
confident prayer as well as their life model.
Dear
brothers and sisters, and especially you, dear priests, I am aware of
the generosity and dedication with which you serve the Lord and the
Church. Your daily work forming the new generations in the faith, in
close connection with the sacraments of Christian initiation, as well as
marriage preparation and offering guidance to families in their often
difficult progress, particularly in the important task of raising
children, is the fundamental way to regenerating the Church ever anew,
and also to reviving the social fabric of our beloved city of Rome.
Continue,
therefore, without letting yourselves be discouraged by the
difficulties you encounter. The educational relationship is delicate by
nature: in fact, it calls into question the freedom of the other who,
however gently, is always led to make a decision. Neither parents nor
priests nor catechists, nor any other educators can substitute for the
freedom of the child, adolescent or young person whom they are
addressing. The proposal of Christianity in particular challenges the
very essence of freedom and calls it to faith and conversion.
Today,
a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of educating is the
massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which,
recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only
the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it
becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another,
locking each person into his or her own "ego".
With
such a relativistic horizon, therefore, real education is not possible
without the light of the truth; sooner or later, every person is in fact
condemned to doubting in the goodness of his or her own life and the
relationships of which it consists, the validity of his or her
commitment to build with others something in common.
Consequently,
it is clear that not only must we seek to get the better of relativism
in our work of forming people, but we are also called to counter its
destructive predominance in society and culture. Hence, as well as the
words of the Church, the witness and public commitment of Christian
families is very important, especially in order to reassert the
inviolability of human life from conception until its natural end, the
unique and irreplaceable value of the family founded on marriage and the
need for legislative and administrative measures that support families
in the task of bringing children into the world and raising them, an
essential duty for our common future. I also offer you my heartfelt
thanks for this commitment.
I would like to entrust
to you a last message concerning the care of vocations to the
priesthood and to the consecrated life: we all know the Church's great
need of them!
First of all, prayer is crucial in
order that these vocations be born and reach maturity, and that those
called will always continue to be worthy of their vocation; prayer
should never be lacking in any family or Christian community.
However,
the life witness of priests and men and women religious and their joy
in having been called by the Lord is also fundamental.
Equally
so is the essential example that children receive in their own family
and the conviction of families themselves that for them too, the
vocation of a child of theirs is a great gift from the Lord. Indeed, the
choice of virginity for the love of God and the brethren, which is
required for priesthood and for consecrated life, goes hand in hand with
the estimation of Christian marriage: both, in two different and
complementary ways, make visible in a certain way the mystery of God's
Covenant with his people.
Dear brothers and
sisters, I consign these thoughts to you as a contribution to your work
in the evening sessions of the Convention, and later, during the coming
pastoral year. I ask the Lord to give you courage and enthusiasm, so
that our Church of Rome, each parish, religious community, association
or movement, may participate more intensely in the joy and labours of
the mission; thus, each family and the entire Christian community will
rediscover in the Lord's love the key that opens the door of hearts and
makes possible a true education in the faith and people's formation.
My affection and my Blessing go with you today and in the future.
© Copyright 2005 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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