The thoughts of Europe” “

The 11th ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is continuing in the Vatican (until 23 October). It is dedicated to “The Eucharist: source and culmination of the life and mission of the Church”. Various situations and perspectives were traced by the European Synodal Fathers. We publish some passages from their interventions. PENANCE. “The abuse of acceding to communion without the sacrament of penance must be eliminated”, declared Cardinal Janis Pujats, archbishop of Riga, ( LATVIA), and he added: “Before communion, it is the task of priests to invite the faithful to individual confession of sins” and “the best place for doing so” is “the confessional, placed in the church and constructed with a grate between the confessor and the penitent”. According to the cardinal, “in so far as it is possible, priests must create the conditions to ensure that the faithful have access to penance: for if men and women die in sin, any other pastoral effort is in vain… . If we really want to renew the spiritual life of the people – he concluded – we can only leave the confessional after the last penitent has received pardon”. ABUSES. The bishop of Siedlce ( POLAND), the Most Rev. Zbigniew Kiernikowski, warned of the danger of the “abuse of the liturgical signs in the eucharistic celebration”, especially “with reference to the lack of or insufficient reverence for the Eucharist”. The bishop asserted, contrariwise, that “the celebration of the Eucharist with attention to the Word and to the signs, especially the breaking of bread and the participation in the chalice, can work miracles”. He therefore proposed that “the opportunity be given to use to the full the signs so that the liturgy may truly realise its character and its formative and constitutive value for Christian life”. In the view of the bishop, “more attention needs to be paid to formative catechesis” on the nature of the Eucharist, “by rendering present the aspect of the Eucharist that communicates and places in communion, i.e. creates the Body” and by permitting “the faithful to drink from the chalice whenever this is possible”. THREE DIMENSIONS. “The three dimensions of the Christian faith, martyria, liturgy and diakonia, form the fulcrum of being Christians and of the Christian identity. On the other hand, martyria and diakonia find their essence, strength and prospect in the liturgy”, said Bishop Hil Kabashi of Torri di Bizacena, apostolic administrator of southern Albania ( ALBANIA). “Otherwise – he wondered – how would it be conceivable that so many martyrs in Albania were for years discriminated against, arrested, persecuted and killed because they bore witness to the Christian faith, without the strength they derived from their deep faith in Jesus Christ and in his real presence in the Eucharist? Still today in the port city of Vlora, in the convent of the Servite sisters, there is a statue of the Virgin Mary where the priest hid the hosts for the sisters after having secretly celebrated mass at the risk of his life”. CRUCIFIED CHURCH. “In my diocese alone over two thirds of the faithful were exterminated without reason… Almost a fifth of my parish priests (7) were assassinated (and to them we should add one male and one female religious), because they revealed the virtues of reconciliation and love for our neighbour, tirelessly preaching and bearing witness to them, and because with their faithful they continued regularly to celebrate Mass, despite the fact that their churches had been destroyed”, recalled Bishop Franjo Komarica of Banja Luka ( BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA). “These witnesses” – he continued – sealed “with their own blood their unshakable faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist”. “We want to believe – concluded Msgr. Komarica – that these barbarous sacrifices of our priests and of our religious, as also the sacrifice of many of our lay faithful, who bore witness to an authentic ‘crucified Church’ of our time in Europe, and who united themselves to the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, shall be fruitful for the reconciliation we yearn for, for a just peace, and for the salvation of many people in my country and elsewhere”. BEAUTY. “Making visible the relation that exists between the Eucharist and the profound aspirations of the heart of contemporary man; starting out from Christ, going to the heart of the faith through the first proclamation of the Gospel; and promoting the quality and beauty of the eucharistic celebration as privileged moment of evangelization”: these are the key points of the “project of evangelization with an ample contemplative and missionary dimension” that Bishop Augusto Dos Santos Marto of Viseu ( PORTUGAL) thinks indispensable to try to overcome what he called “the eucharistic emergency” deriving from the weakening “of faith in and affection for the Eucharist”. “The Eucharist is also for the world – he declared -. The eucharistic assembly, apart from being a public testimonial of the faith, is also the bearer of a eucharistic culture, of personal and social attitudes and forms of conduct: the experience of brotherhood, of the spirit of reconciliation and peace, the sense of sharing and solidarity, the strength of hope, the festive dimension of the faith…”. HOPE. “The layperson imbued with eucharistic spirit will be present in the reality of the world with a capacity for regarding lasting values, expressing the foundations of a hope that is born from the recognition of the Eucharist as revelation and presence of the gratuitous love of God in our midst”, declared the Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin, archbishop of Dublin ( IRELAND). “The Eucharist – he continued – represents an extraordinary source of strength to combat the widespread lack of hope in our time”, induced by secularisation and by “too limited horizons” to “embrace a vision of the universal world”, because based solely “on human faculties”. Hence the need for an “ongoing formation in the faith” whose “seeds need to be nurtured day after day, year after year”. UNITY. “If the liturgy is regula fidei, if the divine liturgy celebrated by the Oriental Churches in communion with the see of Rome and by the Orthodox and Apostolic Churches is identical for both, and if the recognition of the apostolic succession of bishops and, consequently, of the priests who celebrate it, is reciprocal, what more is needed for unity? “. That’s the question posed by Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, archbishop major of Lviv of the Ukrainians and President of the Synod of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church ( UKRAINE). “As hierarch of an oriental Church sui iuris“, Cardinal Husar made the proposal that the next Synod “be dedicated to the Oriental Churches”, “also to help us grow in Catholic intra-ecclesial communion”. CLARITY. “Revisiting the eucharistic mystery in relation to the other sacraments, especially in relation to the sacramental nature of marriage in mixed marriages and offering essential guidance” is “an urgent challenge” for bishops in the local context, in the view of the Most Rev. Djura Dzudzar, bishop of Acrasso and apostolic exarch of Serbia and Montenegro for Byzantine-rite Catholics ( SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO). The bishop then underlined the importance of clarifying the relation between Eucharist and ecumenism. “Common celebrations – he said – may become a strong message in our daily life. But clear premises are needed to spell out how far it is possible to go at the liturgical level in celebrating together with the churches and Christian communities that compose the ecumenical mosaic. That’s why we propose a liturgical guide that may help to ensure that the communion, still not reached, be invoked in prayer and not considered a foregone conclusion or even a ‘tool’ of dialogue”. WONDER. “I was direct witness of so many heroic acts during the decades of totalitarian Communism. In that period, the only place where the faithful could nurture the courage of their faith was the church. The celebration of the Eucharist was at once a time of evangelization, catechesis and communion with God and our fellowmen”, recalled Bishop Petru Gherghel of Iasi ( ROMANIA). Describing the years after 1989, he pointed out that, in spite of the risk of “alienation from the faith” prompted by a “misunderstood freedom”, “the respect and love for the Eucharist are stronger today than they were in the past” and “attendance at Sunday Mass is rather high and perhaps better motivated” than it was before. Msgr. Gherghel made a suggestion: “bearing in mind the oriental tradition, I propose that we adopt for the Holy Mass also the name ‘Holy and Divine Liturgy’, alongside the Latin name: a title that “invites us to wonder, silence and adoration”. WITHIN THE MYSTERY. “The need for a ‘mystagogical shift’ in our pastoral approach is becoming ever more vital and actual. We are anchored to a pastoral approach that ‘prepares’ for the sacraments. No sooner have the sacraments of Christian initiation been celebrated than we say ‘goodbye’ to the Christian community. In fact an essential experience is lacking: the progressive entry into the mystery of salvation”. That’s the conviction expressed by Archbishop Francesco Cacucci of Bari-Bitonto ( ITALY). In his view, it is the essential task of mystagogy – i.e. the initiation into the mystery of Christ – “to guide the faithful within the mystery, and to mark the encounter between catechesis, experience of the celebration and the life of Christians”. In response to the ever-resurgent rationalist temptation – he observed – the eucharistic mystagogy highlights the primacy of grace” and since “the Sunday eucharistic celebration is the most important missionary place of the Church”, Archbishop Cacucci emphasized the importance of “a ‘mystagogical’ accompaniment for the Christian community to help it “participate in the liturgy” in a “full, active and conscious” way.