The synodal and missionary Church presses on.

More news from the African Synodal Assembly.

PRESS RELEASE N.3 This Synod Assembly is over, but the synodal and missionary Church is moving forward!  After a morning dedicated to the practice of spiritual conversation in working groups on the draft Final Document that will be sent to the General Secretariat of the Synod by 31 March, this afternoon the participants gathered in plenary assembly to share the fruits of the morning’s work. Much of the afternoon was devoted to perfecting the final document with corrections and amendments. It was an arduous but true collegial work where everyone was able to express their opinion. The assembly managed to approve a set of priorities that it intends to offer as Africa Synod document to the universal Church for the work of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. The ad hoc group of experts who, since the seminaries in Accra and Nairobi, have been working on the Addis Ababa Synodal Assembly document, will continue to refine the document according to the indications received from the Assembly before sending it to the General Secretariat of the Synod.   In their closing remarks cardinal Berhaneyesus Souraphiel, who hosted the meeting, said “We are all Africans, so let us be free to move anywhere, to journey together, especially our youth who aspire to go to go Arab region of Africa and South Africa in search of greener pastures. SECAM can not only be the voice of Africa but also the point of reference”.   Bishop Lucio Muandula, first vice-president of Secam, quoted psalm 133 “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the collar of his robes” to express his satisfaction and reminded how “Journeying together gives us the strength to overcome any problems and challenges.”   Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, General Rapporteur of the 16th General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of the Bishops, expressed his joy and satisfaction on the work of the assembly. “I would like to thank God and all of you for this wonderful time of listening, of listening with empathy. In all continental assemblies I have found a catholic way of journeying together, of synodality through the spiritual conversation where sisters or brothers are a place where the Holy Spirit speaks to us and where we are all called to conversion in order to serve the world”. And referring particularly to the last session, he stated “I must say that I admire you for the passion you put in this last debate. It shows that the Church in Africa is living and that God’s Spirit is living in you”.   Then, the President of Secam, cardinal Fridolin Ambongo closed officially the meeting saying “We have come to the end of this historic Continental Plenary Assembly of the Synod on Synodality. […] These days we have been together at this Synod Assembly were not only a moment to talk about synodality, but a moment of experiencing synodality. We truly felt like a family, the family of God in Africa and the Islands that walks together, sharing joy and sorrows of our time. Focusing on the exercise of listening, cardinal Ambongo recognized that “listening to each other and to the Holy Spirit, helped us to reach consensus in dealing with the delicate themes that the Church is living today on the continent and the Islands, and to identify the priorities of the Church in Africa. This Syond Assembly is over, but the synodal and missionary Church is moving forward!” The President of Secam then concluded that “Renewed through the celebration of this continental synodal assembly, the Church in Africa and Islands commits to move on, especially by deepening the sense of being a Church-family, making it a place of mutual listening and listening to the Holy Spirit, a place of communion, forgiveness and reconciliation. Renewed by the celebration of this synodal assembly, the Church in Africa commits to enlarge the tent of inclusion by following the Gospel principle of conversation as the criteria”.

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More news from the African Synod Assembly

African Synodality Newsletter Team www.synod.va – synodafrican@gmail.comView this email in your browser #Press Release – 03/03/2023 Visit addisababa.synod2023.org for more news Photos available here ShareTweetForward PRESS RELEASE N.2 Unity, fight against poverty, social equality and neocolonialism as first main concerns of the African Church The African Synod on Synodality Assembly taking place in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) entered the second working session as Prayers, Reflection, Spiritual Conversation and sharing on Document for the Continental Stage (DCS) remained key items on the delegates’ programme.  The first item on the agenda was the eucharist which was presided over by Antoine Cardinal Kambanda, the Archbishop of Kigali in Rwanda. The Cardinal opened up the day by reminding the participants of the need to foster listening. He expressed regrets saying, “We don’t listen to each other despite the means of communication we have.” Cardinal Kambanda who gave the homily during the morning Holy Mass said “the most precious gift that God gave to humanity is the word and the word realizes its objective and has sense when it is listened to. We need to listen to this word of God to live to receive his divine life. The Local Ordinary of Kigali Archdiocese lamented that “today there are a lot of means of communication but it is the period that communication is at its lowest stage because we don’t listen to each other despite the means of communication that we have.” (Read more here) After the recap of the experience and process of the previous day, the bulk of the morning of the second working day of the Continental Synodal Assembly was dedicated to the practice of spiritual conversation: the method presented at the beginning of the assembly aimed at fostering listening to the Holy Spirit and mutual listening among the participants.  Introducing the morning’s proceedings and providing a guide to reading the DCS was Fr Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator SJ, President of the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar. He first invited the participants to recognize their common baptismal dignity. Baptism, the Jesuit recalled, “is our founding identity, which qualifies us to participate in the life and mission of the Church, in communion, sharing and dialogue with people of all denominations”. He then recalled that the heart of spiritual conversation “is prayer and silence” that allows all participants to express their opinions openly and honestly. Referring then to the invitation to “widen the space of the tent”, Fr. Orobator recalled how the image of the tent taken from the book of the prophet Isaiah can be compared to the African Tukul, the house par excellence consisting of a roof, walls and a central pole. Whether it is a tent or a Tukul, “the Church-house has no doors that close, but a perimeter that continually widens”. It is “a tent, a family where everyone can find a place and a home.” Finally, the Jesuit repeatedly recalled how “this is a time to thank God who has brought us together, guided by the Spirit of God. This is a time to rejoice: let us not allow the weeds to hinder us; let us allow the spirit to lead us forward. (Read more here) During the afternoon session 15 spiritual conversation groups presented summary reports of discussions in their respective groups. Various groups proposed unity, fight against poverty, fight against social equality, neocolonialism as some of the priority areas the synod Fathers need to focus on during the synodal process.The Church as the family of God called to evangelize through formation. A well-formed family will ensure the society is good and grows according to African values.The groups vouched for synodal Church as a family of God with defined roles and responsibilities that promote African values and ameliorate the structural governance of the Church family of God by empowering the laity through formation. Synodality invites us to journey together and not to walk alone by the diversity of our cultures. Africa is called to examine all mechanisms put in place to ensure journeying together is a reality. Synodality invites us to a profound conversion. This can be achieved through a respect of African values in which the family can play a major role. African voices need to be taken into consideration in the decision making process of the Church. The groups stressed the need for a family centered understanding of synodality and promotion of African values and a holistic catechism for all. SUBSCRIBE THE NEWLETTER Copyright  2023 General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops, All rights reserved.

More News of Continental Synodal Assemblies

General Secretariat of the Synod https://www.synod.va – media@synod.va #SynodBangkok2023 Towards the Continental Synodal Assembly in Asia New information about the Continental Synod Assembly for Asia, which opens this week (23-26) in Bangkok, Thailand, are available at bangkok.synod2023.org. #Synod Celam 2023 The second of four sub-regional assemblies in preparation for the Continental Synodal Assembly at the end of March is underway in Santo Domingo. Until next 24 February, 50 delegates representing the Church in the Caribbean region will discuss the issues set out in the working document for the Continental stage.  #SynodAddis Ababa 2023 Towards the Addis Ababa Assembly Preparations are in full swing for the Continental Synodal Assembly for Africa. Every day, Oscar Elizalde, member of the Communication Commission of the General Secretariat of the Synod, tells us about the work together with his ADN CELAM team.You can follow the updates at addisababa.synod2023.org   For now, we invite you to listen to the testimonies of Philomena Mwaura, lecturer at Kenyatta University, and that of Moses Ojok, Member of the IYAB (International Youth Advisory Body) of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. Philomena tells us how this synod on synodality was received in her parish community. For his part, Moses tells us how the concept of synodality is understood in the African youth context. For a synodal Lent On 17 February, Pope Francis’ Message for Lent 2023 “Lenten penance, a synodal journey” was published. On the eve of the celebration of ashes with which we begin the Lenten journey, we invite you to read and meditate on this important message of Pope Francis’ synodal magisterium. To the message We take this opportunity to share with you two resources for this Lenten season. One is a Way of the Cross prepared by Sr. Inigo and which comes to us from India.  The second is a series of reflections for Lent in connection with the synodal path prepared by St Paul’s Parish in Los Angeles. Through the portal https://synod2023.org you can access the sites of the individual continental meetings.Copyright  2023 General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: General Secretariat for the Synod of BishopsVia della Conciliazione, 34Vatican City 00120Vatican City State (Holy See)Aggiungi il nostro indirizzo alla tua rubrica

28 November: Advent Light II, at table.

If you were in church yesterday, no doubt you’ll have seen the Advent wreath with a single candle burning. Do you have one at home? There’s still time to make one, or you could just light a candle. Mrs Turnstone and I have ours on the dining table and we would hold hands around it with the children and sing grace. We now do the same with the grandchildren. We also sing the chorus of the Advent hymn:

Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, oh Israel!

This story is from Alexander McCall Smith’s ‘The House of Unexpected Sisters’.* Mma Ramotswe is ready to serve the evening meal to her husband and two children. Perhaps we could revive the practice of saying grace this Advent, and be ready to find new forms of grace to remind us that all we have is God’s gift, and the greatest gift is the One that came at Christmas.

‘Dinner is ready now, I think.’

She ladled stew into four plates, and placed these, one by one, on the table. Once seated herself, Mma Ramotswe bowed her head and said grace. ‘We give thanks for the food our country gives us, and we think of those who do not have what we have. We give thanks for Africa and for the good things that Africa gives its children.

‘Amen,’ said Motholeli.

‘Me too,’ said Puso.

*Little, Brown, London 2018, p37-38.

4.4.22: The Synod is based on Scripture.

The latest circular from the Synod Office looks at the Biblical sources of the Synod. Read the whole document here. See the opening paragraphs below. (Did I once express the hope that there would not be too much technical language or long sentences? Perhaps I was dreaming.) One article which is more accessible comes from Burkina Faso, where they have great problems in getting together because of terrorist attacks.

How are you? We come with new information and a theme that is inspiring and fundamental: The Word of God in the synodal journey. We are in a process of listening, in which we must be attentive to the Word like Mary. This Word will encourage and guide us in our journey as a pilgrim Church.

Synodality and the Word of God

The Biblical Subgroup of the Spirituality Commission of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops has prepared a resource entitled “Biblical Resources for Synodality,” which highlights how Scripture is at the heart of the synodal journey.

GO TO THE DOCUMENT

Going Viral XCII: a report from Africa.

Women in Abuja, Nigeria, wear face masks May 2, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. (CNS/Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde)

The road to full vaccination in Africa looks like being long and difficult.This article from the National Catholic Reporter tells how Catholic parishes are encouraging vaccinations; yet even though nowhere near enough doses are available, there is much scepticism about their efficacy.

Olayide Osibogun, a public health physician at the University of Lagos, said: “The purpose of having a vaccine is to provide immunity to as many people as possible and break the chain of transmission. And when people refuse to take the vaccine, they make achieving herd immunity impossible.”

But vaccine hesitancy is still growing on the continent. Some Catholic communities are showing indifference towards taking vaccines. Mabola Thusi, a parishioner at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, in the Archdiocese of Johannesburg, South Africa, for example, spoke to NCR about her hesitancy to take a vaccine that was developed in a few years.

by Patrick Egwu, Saint Ekpali

7 October, Our Lady of the Rosary: Review of The World of Marian Apparitions by Wincenty Laszewski

My Catholic primary school taught us stories from the Bible, one between two at a shared desk. We also heard about miracles outside Scripture, including visitations of Our Lady, especially at Lourdes and Fatima. I came to feel the emphasis on these ‘private revelations’ was excessive, but visiting England’s Walsingham, a shrine for almost 1000 years, set me thinking about the role of Mary ever since.

We’d been told that only Catholics honour Mary, yet Walsingham has beautiful Anglican and Orthodox Shrines as well as the Catholic one. Each one made us welcome. We learned that icons like the Mother of Perpetual Succour came from the East. Later, joining  ecumenical pilgrimages meant walking and talking, eating and praying together.

This book may inspire the reader to go on pilgrimage to one of the featured shrines, or to turn the pages while voyaging in imagination, beads in your hand, a candle and pilgrim’s shell beside you. The many well-chosen pictures will help you to be there. 

Doctor Samuel Johnson, a devout 18th Century Anglican philosopher, had this to say regarding pilgrimage: ‘To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible’. In other words, there is room to be led by feelings as well as by intellectual theology when visiting shrines.

The book may set you thinking about Mary and her place in the life of the Church. When it first opened Walsingham’s Anglican shrine attracted charges of ‘Mariolatry’ – idolising Mary. Less stridently, others judge the honour given to Mary to be obscuring her Son. But on the Feast of the Assumption this year, Pope Francis pointed out that Mary was and remains humble, so that God was able to beget his Son through her and pour out blessings through her, down to today. So it is in humility that we should set out on pilgrimage, on foot, by transport, or through the imagination. 

Whoever receives an apparition can expect grief from a naturally sceptical world and a deliberately sceptical Church which has to discern the spirits at work in these incidents. But once the Church has accepted an apparition as genuine, we can follow Johnson’s advice: ‘Far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue.’

Wincenty Laszewski has limited his explorations to apparitions beginning from the late 19th Century, thus omitting Lourdes which still witnesses renewal of faith as well as physical and emotional healings. Renewal and healing occur at other shrines too, and Laszewski leads us to many across the world.

Fatima, whose Sister Lucia certainly suffered at the hands of the Church, is well known but most of these shrines were new to me. At Beauraing, Belgium, in the 1930s the children who saw and heard Mary came from families indifferent to religion; it was only after the Occupation ended that the local bishop could pronounce the supernatural nature of the events. The children faded into the background, later marrying and raising Christian families. Thus they lived out their response to Mary’s two questions: “Do you love my Son?” and “Do you love me?” 

Far from there, in Ngome, South Africa, a German Benedictine missionary received visions in the 1950s. Sister Reinolda heard from Mary that she should be addressed as ‘Tabernacle of the Most High’, as she had held Jesus, the Host, in her womb and in her arms. It was time for Christians to be ‘a sea of hosts’ to bring Christ’s salvation to the world; a poetic but doctrinally orthodox idea. We are the Body of Christ, as Saint Paul proclaims (1 Corinthians 12:27). Mary also asked for a shrine where seven springs come together.

In Egypt it was at a Coptic Orthodox Church dedicated to Mary that she was seen by thousands of Muslims and Christians on a number of occasions. As always there is scepticism from more than one side, theories of mass suggestion  or natural phenomena or fakery, as Laszewski makes plain. But in the spirit of ecumenism which characterises Egyptian Christianity, the Catholic Church accepts the judgement of the Orthodox Patriarch’s Commission that the apparitions, and subsequent individual healings, were God’s work. 

Scepticism is an honest position to adopt towards apparitions, and always the first stance of the Church which proclaims Christ Crucified, foolishness to the Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1:23). But Mary makes the sign of the cross during many apparitions, indicating that the Cross is central to her message. Those who accept the divine origin of the apparitions should not disdain people who are indifferent or unmoved.

As time goes by, shrines may continue to flourish in ways that the original visionaries could not have expected. Who would have predicted today’s ecumenical scene in Walsingham? Mary was seen here before the Reformation, before even the Great Schism between Eastern and Western Christianity; now it is a place where some of those wounds are being healed. What blessings will be made available to the faithful and the world as these modern shrines find their lasting mission?

A few points regarding Wincenty Laszewski’s labour of love. At p197 he wrongly portrays Frank Duff as seeking permission of St John Paul II to found the Legion of Mary. Duff had begun this work in 1921 in Dublin, more than half a century before meeting the Pope in Poland. Saint Pius X became Pope in 1903, not 1913. Laszewski relates how his predecessor, Leo XIII had a vision of the 20th Century and its evils. The Pope did not reveal details of this event, but Laszewski claims it as a Marian Apparition because Leo championed the Rosary. Pious suppositions are not history!

I would not be alone in scratching my head over Laszewski’s description of Ngome as  a place where natural realities came into contact with the supernatural. Springs of water have always been places where contact with the supernatural is a given, as at the Pool of Bethesda, or Lourdes, or many a holy well. In the words Chesterton put into the mouth of Mary, speaking to King Alfred:

The gates of Heaven are lightly locked,
We do not guard our gain,
The heaviest hind may easily
Come silently and suddenly
Upon me in a lane.

Lord, grant us eyes to see with and to discern your presence in the people we meet.

25 September, Season of Creation XXVI: the globalisation of indifference. Laudato Si’ X.

51. Inequity affects not only individuals but entire countries; it compels us to consider an ethics of international relations. A true “ecological debt” exists, particularly between the global north and south, connected to commercial imbalances with effects on the environment, and the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time. The export of raw materials to satisfy markets in the industrialised north has caused harm locally, as for example in mercury pollution in gold mining or sulphur dioxide pollution in copper mining.

The warming caused by huge consumption on the part of some rich countries has repercussions on the poorest areas of the world, especially Africa, where a rise in temperature, together with drought, has proved devastating for farming. There is also the damage caused by the export of solid waste and toxic liquids to developing countries, and by the pollution produced by companies which operate in less developed countries in ways they could never do at home. Generally, they leave behind great human and environmental liabilities such as unemployment, abandoned towns, the depletion of natural reserves, deforestation, the impoverishment of agriculture and local stock breeding, open pits, riven hills, polluted rivers and a handful of social works which are no longer sustainable”.

52. The foreign debt of poor countries has become a way of controlling them, yet this is not the case where ecological debt is concerned. In different ways, developing countries, where the most important reserves of the biosphere are found, continue to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future. The land of the southern poor is rich and mostly unpolluted, yet access to ownership of goods and resources for meeting vital needs is inhibited by a system of commercial relations and ownership which is structurally perverse. As the United States bishops have said, greater attention must be given to “the needs of the poor, the weak and the vulnerable, in a debate often dominated by more powerful interests”. We need to strengthen the conviction that we are one single human family. There are no frontiers or barriers, political or social, behind which we can hide, still less is there room for the globalisation of indifference.

29 July, Going Viral LXXXVI: Reaching out to seminarians in Cameroon

This post links to the Missio website, and tells how Missio (formerly APF) supported a seminary on the front line of a civil war in Cameroon.

In 2020, you reached out to seminarians at St Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary in Bambui, where armed conflict continues to rage between the military and the rebel ‘Amba Boys’.

The Rector, Fr Ignatius, shared with us:

‘In 2020, the armed conflict did not disturb us much, except for the times when the gun battles were on the highway that runs right in front of the Seminary. At such times, all the members of the community stayed in the backyard, using the buildings as cover’.

Follow thre link to read the report. Impact Report 2021: Reaching out to seminarians in Cameroon

22 July: The role of dance in African culture

An all-female cultural dance troupe, comprising female students from Annunciation Secondary School, Nkwo, Nike, in Enugu State, Nigeria, dances to traditional Igbo music during the interhouse sporting competition held Feb. 26, 2019. (Wikimedia Commons/Arch-Angel Raphael the Artist, CC-BY-SA 4.0)

Sister Mary Morajeyo Okewola writes about dance from Nigeria for the National Catholic Reporter. An interesting reflection with a sting in the last paragraph for well-meaning missionaries.

As an African, dance is as much a part of my life as eating, drinking and working, but it is also an important part of our worship, following the guidance of the Bible where it is frequently referenced, particularly in the Old Testament. There dance is a form of worship — as a recognition of love and praise of God. It, along with other spiritual exercises, were believed to be accepted by God as satisfactory veneration.

Read the whole article here.