Inhabiting time

“Inhabiting our time in a Christian way” was the theme of the 24th meeting of the European Colloquium of parishes held in Porto (Portugal) from 8 to 12 July. The participants came from Belgium, Spain, Portugal, England, Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Ukraine. The meeting consisted in a continuous exchange between the contribution of conference delegates and the experience of parish priests. The theme was explored on the basis of three reports: Salvador Pié, Professor at the Faculty of Theology of Barcelona and of the Gregorian University in Rome, spoke of “ Christianity, a way of inhabiting the world“. His report took as its point of reference the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes , as topical as ever, but a document that needs to be constantly ‘re-actualized’ to develop new guidelines and give form to a lifestyle based on dialogue. Joël Morlet, vicar general of Châlons-en-Champagne and lecturer of sociology at the Catholic Institute in Paris, explored the theme of contemporary religious feeling by posing the question: “ After secularisation, a religious Europe?“. Inhabiting our time in a Christian way presupposes coming to terms with this strange category, secularisation. That presupposes, in turn, coming to terms with the often merely subjective dimension of religious beliefs and rites and acknowledging a new way of experiencing the religious relation. Father Franclim Pacheco spoke of the way in which the Jewish people understood its relation with other peoples: “ Inhabiting this world: within or without?” It is against this background that Jesus developed a new way of “inhabiting this world”: He “pitched his tent” to remain among us and with us. From this descends the different attitudes of Christians in the various European contexts, as well as the differences between them and their contemporaries. But the European Colloquium of the parishes is also an ecclesial experience and an encounter between communities in the field. The participants were able to meet directly some fifteen parishes of the city of Porto and its suburbs, discovering in them a different presence of the Church, amid “the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time” ( Gaudium et Spes , n° 1). To the reflection and discovery of the local Church was added the meeting between the participants themselves and the joy of being “actors of the Gospel”. Precisely this is an important characteristic of the long tradition of the European Colloquium of the parishes: re-uniting Christians interested in the preaching of the Gospel on the basis of the parishes, experiencing the riches of communion and dialogue thanks to the discovery of a local Church, and developing a reflection that may encourage the commitment of everyone, both collectively and individually, in their respective environments. At the end of the meeting, the participants understood more deeply that “inhabiting our time in a Christian way” requires of our ecclesial realities, in the first place our parishes, but also individuals and groups, the enactment of three verbs: listening, discerning, travelling. They are also three “postures of dialogue” that need to be developed as person and as community to bear witness to Jesus Christ and experience his spirit among our contemporaries. The 25th European Colloquium of the parishes will be held at Mons (Belgium) in July 2009 and will be another occasion for dialogue between Christians from the four corners of Europe, and another occasion to be inspired by the rich diversity of witness of the Gospel in our continent. The elimination of frontiers is an opportunity to establish a dialogue: we have a great need for it in Europe, in each of our countries and in each of our parishes.