With the sense of mystery” “

“The Eucharist: source and culmination of the life and mission of the Church”: that was the theme of the 11th ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops held in the Vatican from 2 to 23 October. Three weeks of work attended by over 250 Synodal Fathers from all over the world, to mark the conclusion of the Year of the Eucharist, ended with an appeal to “all those who govern the Nations” to “consider with due attention the well being of everyone” and to be “promoters of the full dignity of each person from conception to natural death”. The “Message of the Synod of Bishops to the people of God”, published on 22 October, was also welcomed by Benedict XVI, who in the concluding celebration recalled the main themes that had emerged from the Synod: the conversion to love, the commitment to fidelity and the mission in the world. By “benevolent decision” of the Pope, the final list of the Synod’s 50 Propositions was also published. We present some post-synodal reflections by Msgr. Amedée Grab , President of the Council of the European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE), by the archbishop of Brussels, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, and by the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola . A MANIFESTATION OF RICHNESS. “An efflorescence, a manifestation of the richness contained in John Paul II’s idea for this Year of the Eucharist” was how Bishop Amedée Grab, CCEE President, summed up the work of the Synod. He explained that the Synod “was asked to add nothing, and so it turned out”. It was but “the final explosion of a fireworks display that should embrace the whole world”. What Msgr. Grab most appreciated about the 23 days of the work of the Synod was “the experience of the other fathers, the contacts with the other bishops who live in very difficult conditions”, and he reported the words of a bishop who declared “how happy he was when the parishes of his diocese could receive the Eucharist at least once each year”. But what about the Eucharist in our part of the world? That was the provocative question posed by the President of the CCEE. “In my diocese of Chur (Switzerland) – he added – there’s an alarming shortage of priests. But at least we have a Sunday Mass in each parish. So the idea is to stop speaking of the lack of priests and to see instead how clergy and faithful realise the fullness of ecclesial communion in the Eucharist”. THE TRADITION OF THE CHURCH. “Nothing new was added at the doctrinal level, nor was this the Synod’s objective”, explained the archbishop of Malines-Bruxelles, Cardinal Godfried Danneels. The reference was aimed, in particular, at the celibacy of priests, and the accession to communion of remarried divorcees and non-Catholics. “The aim of the Synod – he repeated – was not to introduce theological novelties but to renew pastoral practice. The final propositions say nothing new, but after 40 years of conciliar reforms a readjustment was normal”. With regard to the work of the Synod, the cardinal said he was struck by the testimonies that touched on some of the challenges of our time, such as “secularization and the lack of vocations in Europe and North America, Aids, war and relations with Islam in Africa, and the spread of the sects and the proselytism of the Protestant Churches in Latin America”. The responses that the Catholic Church must give are, according to the Synodal Fathers, “a more incisive vocational ministry and a better redistribution of priests in the world”. EUCHARISTIC MAN. “Who is the man who goes to celebrate the Eucharist? Who is the man – to use another wonderful expression of John Paul II – who lives his life in eucharistic form?”. These are the questions that continue to reverberate in the mind of Cardinal Angelo Scola after the Synod. The answer is clear: “He is a man passionate about his destiny and the destiny of humanity. He is a man who has an acute sense of his freedom and, just for this reason, a man who knows how to make room for the mystery of He who knows everything of God the Father, the Creator: He who in his incarnation, preaching, passion, death and resurrection revealed to us his face of love”. In the Patriarch of Venice’s view, he is “a man moved by the sense of mystery and conscious that this love is the God who is close to us, who accompanies us in the extraordinary adventure of existence and who indicates to us in Jesus the way to arrive at truth and life: the way to fulfilment and happiness, and the way for our freedom to be continuously freed from the traps and snares into which we fall due to our own inner fragility. He is the religious man who is found at all latitudes and longitudes, and who knows how to entrust his own religious feeling to the gift of faith”.