Pope proclaims two new Doctors of the Church and Inaugurates the Synod
October 7, 2012: The Holy Father today presided over the liturgical celebration for
the inauguration of the Synod and prior to the Eucharistic celebration he proclaimed
St. John of Avila and St. Hildegard of Bingen as Doctors of the Universal Church in
a solemn rite.
Hildegard was a Benedictine nun in the heart of medieval Germany,
an authentic teacher of theology and a profound scholar of natural science and music.
John, a diocesan priest in the years of the Spanish Renaissance, shared in the travail
of the cultural and religious renewal of the Church and of all society at the dawn
of modern times.
The 13th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops
has brought bishops from all over the world to Rome from Oct. 7-28 to discuss the
theme of “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.” In
total, 262 Synod Fathers, the largest number in the history of Synods, will participate
in the three weeks of discussion, held at the Vatican’s Synod Hall. Also participating
in the forthcoming synodal assembly will be forty-five experts, forty-nine auditors,
fraternal delegates from 15 Churches and ecclesial communities not yet in communion
with the Catholic Church, and three special guests
Here below the text of
the Pope’s homily:
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 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 the 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 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 way ahead.