The thoughts of Europe” “

The 11th ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on “The Eucharist: source and culmination of the life and mission of the Church” will end in the Vatican on Sunday 23 October. We cite below some passages from the interventions of the Synodal Fathers and some reflections that emerged from the discussion in the various language groups. SENSE OF THE SACRED. “Today values are in disarray. The sense of the sacred has been obscured and the sense of sin has been relativized. What does sin mean for the new generations today?”. That is the questions posed by Cardinal Vinko Puljic, archbishop of Vrhbosna Sarajevo, and President of the Bishops’ Conference of BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA. “It seems to me”, today too, “that the priest often finds himself in danger – he continued -. Living daily today with the people of this millennium within the process of secularism, materialism and consumerism, we also lose the sense of the sacred”. This only reinforces the value of Eucharistic adoration which, explained the cardinal, “is for the priest, but not only for him, something extraordinary for interiorising all the sacred acts and gestures. Only with the dignity of the sacred acts and the deep consciousness of the mystery of the Eucharist, can we receive its fruits”. “With the Eucharist – he concluded – we nourish our spiritual life”. LOCAL LANGUAGES. “The liturgy is one of the key instruments for evangelization and must be celebrated with a language that introduces the faithful to the heart of the mystery of the faith”, declared the Most. Rev. Ian Murray, bishop of Argyll and the Isles (SCOTLAND – GREAT BRITAIN). “The [liturgical] texts – he added – should go beyond the caprices of linguistic peculiarities. The local languages present particular difficulties, as is the case in my own diocese with the Scottish Gaelic. In situations like this, the local bishops should be given the faculty to produce and approve special texts for the liturgy”. Again speaking of evangelization, Bishop Murray stressed the importance of accompanying “the academic formation of priests” with proper “human and spiritual formation”. WITNESS OF CHRIST. The question of the “eucharistic spirituality of priests and seminarians” was addressed by the Most. Rev. Zygmunt Zimowski, bishop of Radom (POLAND). “‘Do this’. Christ the Lord does not only say ‘preach’, or ‘recount’ – he underlined –; He says ‘do’. And this word is decisive”. According to Bishop Zimowski “the priest is a sacrament of action. It is the sacrament of the salvific and redemptive act of Christ, an act that was bequeathed to the power of the apostles at the Last Supper”. And he continued: “The Eucharist does not only bear witness to He who ‘loved us unto the end’, but it also educates in this love”. Present-day humanity – he declared – seeks witnesses of the transfiguration”; hence the importance of priests conforming their life “to the mystery of the cross”. Only “by imitating the Eucharist he celebrates does the priest become a witness of Christ”. MISSION. The need “to develop the link between mass and daily life” also with “a more accurate translation of the ‘Ite Missa est'” was underlined by the Most Rev. Sean Baptist Brady, archbishop of Armagh, President of the Bishops’ Conference of Ireland. Summing up the main contents that emerged from the work of the ENGLISH WORK GROUP, Brady said: “It is important to spell out that mission is a consequence of participation in the Eucharist, and we need to formulate in concrete terms the implications that flow from this in terms of commitment in such social fields as justice, solidarity, reconciliation and peace”. Yet “the power of transformation of the Eucharist at the level of individual life and social realities – warned the archbishop – is closely linked to a proper understanding of the real presence in the Eucharist and renewed zeal in the practice of adoration”. IRREGULAR FAMILIES. “Education in eucharistic faith” and the “missionary commitment” that priests are “called to cultivate through the eucharistic celebration” are the main themes that emerged from the work of the ITALIAN LANGUAGE GROUP, reported Msgr. Renato Corti, bishop of Novara (Italy), who also spoke of the “pastoral ministry in favour of those in an irregular matrimonial situation”. In this regard, he said, “the reflection took into consideration” both “the education of the young and pre-marriage courses” and “the condition often charged with loneliness experienced within families”; this underlines “the urgent need for direct contact with families to be cultivated assiduously in our parishes”. We need, Bishop Corti concluded, “to identify some possible and important forms of attention so that people feel they are welcomed, entrust themselves to the Lord and take concrete steps in the light of the Gospel”. MYSTERIUM FIDEI. “Sundays represent ‘a whole’ that invites us to live in the family, in the joy of the holy-day at whose centre is the Mass”; hence “the need for a basic catechesis based on faith in the Mysterium fidei represented by the Eucharist” and the importance of giving “a family character in the broad sense to the Sunday Mass”. This is one of the main reflections that emerged from the work of the FRENCH LANGUAGE GROUP, as described by Bishop Robert Le Gall of Mende (France). “The importance of the daily Mass in the life of the priest, the question of Sunday celebrations in the absence of the priest, the social consequences of eucharistic celebrations” and the “situation of divorcees who remarry” were further issues on the agenda. “As far as inculturation is concerned – said Bishop Le Gall – the unity of the faith needs to be combined with the adaptation of our liturgies” to the local reality. He also insisted that “special attention be paid to the handicapped: they must be given the chance, assisted by their families or communities, to take eucharistic communion”. LIVING THE EUCHARIST. How the Church can “perceive the concerns, the questions and needs of humanity, share then, formulate them and simultaneously bear witness to Jesus Christ, especially today, in response to the fundamental existential questions of man” is for Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller of Regensburg (Germany ) “the fundamental question”. In his report on the work of the GERMAN LANGUAGE GROUP, Müller called for an “effective renewal… by Christians, religious and laity, and particularly by committed Christian youth, to inspire them to come closer to Christ, to practice the love of the Eucharist in their lives and be ready to accept the form of life in Christian marriage and the evangelical counsels. “Here – warned Bishop Müller – it is not a question of numbers, but of quality”. “The best thing we can do for faith in the Eucharist – he concluded – is to live it”. HUNGER FOR GOD. The ten indications that summarise the 27 propositions formulated by the Synodal Fathers who participated in the SPANISH LANGUAGE GROUP were presented by Msgr. Alberto Giraldo Jaramillo, archbishop of Medellin (Colombia). The recommendations include: giving importance “to the formation of seminarians”, ensuring a “worthy celebration” of the Eucharist “in the cathedral, in the parishes and in the various churches of the diocese and enabling the faithful to visit the Most Holy Sacrament in the various hours of the day”; organizing a vocational apostolate in the dioceses; paying “special attention to the sick to give them the chance to partake of the Eucharist”; and offering “a special accompaniment to those who have formed their own family on the basis of the sacrament of matrimony”. The other rapporteur, Archbishop Josè Maria Arancibia of Mendoza (Argentina), expressed “the concern” of the Spanish Language Group “for the hunger for material bread, and the hunger for God, present in the contemporary world”. This is “a profound need – he said -, earthly and divine, that is closely related to the Eucharist”.