Synod News from the Central American Assembly

Saint Óscar Romero, source of inspiration for the Regional Assembly of Central America-Mexico

By: Óscar Elizalde Prada   The first day of the Regional Assembly of Central America-Mexico (CAMEX) – one of the four Assemblies planned by the Latin American and Caribbean Church for the continental stage of the Synod of Synodality – began in San Salvador with a sign of faith, full of hope and prophetic commitment.   Pilgrimage to the Martyr’s Chapel of St. Romero   As pilgrims, the Assembly participants travelled from the Casa Familia de Nazaret – where the meeting is taking place – to the Saint Oscar Arnulfo Romero Martyr’s Chapel located in the Divine Providence Hospital. They arrived there at around 09:00 (local time) to celebrate the opening ceremony, followed by the spiritual retreat that marked the beginning of the activities. The opening ceremony was attended by the Apostolic Nuncio to El Salvador, Mgr. Luigi Roberto Cona; the Archbishop of San Salvador, Mgr. José Luis Escobar Alas; the president of the Conference of Religious of El Salvador, Sr. Genoveva Henríquez – on behalf of the consecrated life of the CAMEX region -; and Mgr. Miguel Cabrejos Vidarte, President of the Latin American Episcopal Council (Celam).   During his intervention, the President of Celam referred to the equality of the baptised “as a structuring criteria for the configuration of all ecclesial subjects”, thus taking up the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and recognising the “People of God as a discerning subject”. In this sense, Bishop Cabrejos insisted that “the practice of discernment in community is essential to grow in synodality and to really walk together in our Church”, since synodality “is not a concept to be studied, but a life to be lived”.   After the opening ceremony, the participants let themselves be inspired by the testimony of St. Romero during the spiritual retreat animated by the spirituality commission of the continental stage led by the General Secretary of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious (CLAR), Sr. Daniela Cannavina, HCMR.   Opening Mass at the tomb of Archbishop Romero   At 13:15 the assembly members went to the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador to celebrate at 14:00 the Opening Mass of the meeting at the tomb of Mons. Romero, in the crypt of the Cathedral, which was presided over by Mons. Miguel Cabrejos.   Both the Eucharist and the retreat were marked with the sign of mysticism and prophecy, and from the option for the poor that identifies the Latin American and Caribbean Church. “Being in this place fills us with emotion and gratitude to God, because it was here that our great prophet Mons. Romero shed his blood”, commented Sister María Suyapa Cacho, a member of the Garífuna pastoral in Honduras, who said that in her vocational journey she has always felt motivated by the testimony of Saint Romero, highlighting his ability to “listen to his people” to discern God’s will in the face of the signs of the times. “I asked God, through the mediation of Mgr Romero, to allow me to continue denouncing the injustices that affect our people and to maintain my commitment to society and to our Church”, she concluded.   After the celebration of the Eucharist, the participants of the CAMEX Regional Assembly returned to the Casa Familia de Nazaret to begin their work in the light of the introductory reflection on synodal spirituality by Father Ricardo González, a member of the theological-pastoral reflection team of Celam. To conclude the day, Sr. Dolores Palencia, CSJ and Mauricio López Oropez introduced the conformation of the working groups in the light of the methodology of spiritual conversation.   The coming days will allow for the experience of active and reciprocal listening, as well as community discernment through spiritual conversation.   Published in: https://adn.celam.org/san-oscar-romero-fuente-de-inspiracion-para-la-asamblea-regional-de-centroamerica-mexico/   Photos: Catholic media chain in El Salvador.

Through the portal https://synod2023.org you can access the sites of the individual continental meetings.

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11 December, Advent Light XI: Changing our outlook

John the Baptist is naturally despondent in today’s Gospel reading. He’s in prison and unable to pursue his vocation of prophet, reminding people that being God’s chosen nation means living as if they really believed it, calling them to repent and offering them the dramatic sign of baptism – full immersion, not just a sprinkling! But now John needs reassurance and turns to the one man who can provide it.

Look what’s happening, replies Jesus. People are being helped and healed, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.

Today the Good News still has to be proclaimed to the poor, and we still need to hear the call to repentance, to take a new direction. Baptised we may have been, but we still need healing. Ponder this extract from an article about the Church in South Sudan, a Church scarred by decades of war and hunger. Fr Michael Heap MAfr goes on to challenge his British readers:

All of us need to be reminded from time to time 
that our Baptism, our taking on the name “Christian”, 
means much more than just living like everyone else, 
apart from some prayers and Sunday Mass. 

We have taken on a new direction in life. 

We don’t go looking for suffering and rejection, 
but if it comes because of our commitment to Jesus Christ, 
we accept it without fear.

This is so in South Sudan. 
It is so in UK. 
It is true in each of our lives. 
To live as baptised followers of Jesus 
means changing our outlook on everything, 
no matter how small.

From: Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) Magazine, August 2022 p3.

29 November: Advent Light III: enable us to return!

St Mildred’s Church, Canterbury.

Let us pray,
God and Father, 
to those who go astray you reveal the light of your truth 
and enable them to return to the right path. 

Grant that all who have received the grace of baptism 
may strive to be worthy of their Christian calling 
and reject everything opposed to it. 

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, 
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

We can all, each and every one of us, go astray; indeed, we all do go astray, day by day. Let us consider one miss-step we have made today, and turn again from it back to the path: Repent!

19 May, Pauline Jaricot Novena VI: ‘I am sending you too’.

A further reflection on the working out of Blessed Pauline Jaricot’s vocation. To find out more about Pauline Jaricot, visit: missio.org.uk/Pauline

Every missionary disciple walks in the footsteps of Jesus. Pauline Jaricot developed the spirituality of the laity; not in founding a Religious community, but a Marian association of women at the service of the poor. Pauline invites us to value the vocation of each baptised person. God’s plan for Pauline was to follow Christ step- by-step: ‘As the Father sent me, so I am sending you too!’ Let us pray that we, baptised and sent, fulfill our calling as missionary disciples.

Our Father. 
Hail Mary. 
Glory be… 
Blessed Pauline Jaricot, pray for us!

25 February: Columban Missionary prayer II.

From Columban Missionaries in the USA.

God of grace and glory,
you call us with your voice of flame
to be your people, 
faithful and courageous.

As your beloved Son embraced his mission
in the waters of baptism, inspire us with the fire of your Spirit
to join in his transforming work.
Amen.

I’ve pointed out before how the windows in Saint Aloysius, near Euston Station in London, show clearly the world that the people of the parish are sent to. Repeat this prayer when you switch on the computer at different times today. May this blog contribute to the Son’s transforming work, Amen.

9 January: The Baptism of Our Lord.

Photograph by CD

John was baptising in the desert of Judea, not in a town centre park, but it was a public event. Crowds of people had come along, some to repent, and to mark their change of direction by approaching the Baptist for immersion in the river, others to enjoy the spectacle of serious fellow citizens emerging from the water out of breath, dripping wet and undignified.

Having attended a few baptisms in my lifetime, I’d say that some things have changed, but the curious observers are still around, often wielding the cameras on their phones. I can’t help feeling that had those devices been around 2000 years ago, many people would have been too busy peering into them to notice the voice from Heaven – or was it a rumble of thunder? My son just showed me a picture of football spectators so busy looking through their phones that they missed the ball going into the corner of the net. Just one teenager is jumping up, arms outstretched, sheer joy on his face.

Last time we were at an event in our local park was the Lady Mayoress’s Carol Service, on the terrace just above the river. Smiles on many faces as far as we could see in the dark. There was even a terrier who tried to join in the singing; he certainly put a smile on Santa’s face! People soon stopped snapping on their phones and joined in the singing.

In the following days, Santa’s two year old grandson kept asking, Grandad, Santa Claus AGAIN! He kept a couple of appointments with the Saint before Christmas, then told the family on Boxing Day, Grandad Santa Claus no more. Santa was not a lasting name for Grandad, but Grandad was a new and lasting name for Will Turnstone.

John the Baptist announced a new name for Jesus, one we still use day by day in the liturgy: the Lamb of God. It is a powerful name: ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’

8 October: Primarily a spiritual journey: the Synod starts tomorrow.

Did I say I hoped the documents from the synod would be in clear English? Well, I’ve had a go at making this one clear. It tells about the opening ceremonies in Rome. I’ve reduced it from 10 pages to one; part;y by discarding lists of names and job titles of senior participants. You can follow the ceremonies live on Vatican News.

Opening of the Synodal Process 9-10 October 2021  

Pope Francis will officially open the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican with a Celebration of the Eucharist in St. Peter’s Basilica (Sunday, 10 October), preceded by a Reflection (Saturday, 9 October). Live streamed from 9.00 a.m. on Vatican News (www.vaticannews.va) in 6 languages, on the VaticanNews App, or on VaticanMedia.

Reflection for the start of the synodal process, Saturday 9 October

This will be in two parts: in plenary session and in language groups, including delegates from Bishops’ Conferences, members of the Curia, fraternal delegates, delegates from consecrated life and lay movements, the youth council. Pope Francis will join the first part.

The opening will also be attended by the International Youth Advisory Body made up of young people under the age of 30 from all continents. 

9:00 Enthronement of the Word of God. The procession will include three young people: a man from Portugal will carry the Gospel, a woman from Chile and a man from India will carry candles. The proclamation will be in three languages – A sister from Italy in Italian – A young man from Lebanon in English – A young woman from El Salvador in Spanish. After a period of Silence, Laudate Omnes Gentes is sung. 9:20 Speech by Pope Francis; 9:45 Greeting by Card. Jean-Claude Hollerich, General Rapporteur of the Synod 10:00; Six Testimonies from different continents: to describe how they live their baptismal condition and their ecclesial ministry and what they expect from the Synodal process on Synodality.  

Eucharistic celebration presided over by the Holy Father, Sunday October 10, St Peter’s Basilica at 10.00 a.m.

 The Cardinals and Bishops enter in procession with 25 representatives of the different continents: a visually impaired person; two religious, two young people from the youth ministry, a Congolese family; a permanent deacon with his wife and two children, a young man from the Romanian Latin rite community and one from the Indian Syro-Malabar rite community, a Lebanese Maronite chaplain, an engaged couple and two other couples, a young priest, a young man from the Roman Catholic Church, a young man from the Indian Orthodox Church and a young man from the Italian Orthodox Church. 

THE GENERAL SECRETARIAT OF THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS 

The General Secretariat is supported by: 

The Orientation Advisory Committee 

The Theological Commission

The Commission on Methodology

The Commission on Spirituality – The Synod is primarily a spiritual journey during which the Church commits itself to listening to the Holy Spirit.

1 October: Praying with Pope Francis, may we be Missionary Disciples.

OCTOBER

October Intention for Evangelisation: – Missionary Disciples

We pray that every baptised person may be engaged in evangelisation, and available to the mission, by being witnesses of a life that has the flavour of the Gospel.

How do you witness in an anonymous city, going home to a tower block where you know few of your neighbours? Maybe I start by being available. Available for a smile, a word of thanks, a door held open. Then Christ can smile, speak, open other doors because of my small acts.

20 July: Renewing the Liturgy, 5 and 6.

RENEWING THE LITURGY: Six Simple Steps 5 and 6

by Pat Travis

At the annual gathering of the priests of the Diocese in October 2018 the speaker was Tom O’Loughlin, Professor of Historical Theology at Nottingham University.  Tom gave the priests of the Diocese Six Simple Steps which could go some way to achieving Vatican II’s vision in our celebration of the Eucharist.  Today we take a look at steps 5 and 6.

Step 5:  Stand at the Table

“One of the obvious changes in the reformed liturgy was that ‘the priest no longer had his back to the people.’  Altars were ‘pulled out’ or a new one built behind which the president stood – and the change was understood in terms of visibility. But the change was really to draw out that the Eucharist takes place at a table, which can be interpreted as our altar.  This is the Lord’s table around which we are bidden by the Lord and which anticipates the heavenly table.

Step 6: The Prayer of the Faithful

“The oldest debate in Christian liturgy relates to the tension between fixed formulae and spontaneous prayer. …”  By the time of Vatican II (1962-65) many “had recognised the need for both familiar forms and for spontaneous expression, and so there is a place for this in the reformed rite: the Prayer [note the singular] of the Faithful.  However, often in practice it has become a scripted set of intentions.  …  The Prayer of the Faithful is an expression of the priesthood of the baptised and their ability, in Christ, to stand in the presence of the Father and ask for their own needs and those of all the communities to which they belong. 

25 April: A larger family.

I would not have expected to be quoting Dr Johnson on Education Sunday, but he gives us something to think about, especially his final sentence.

‘Sir, the life of a parson, of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits* upon my hands than the cure of souls. No, Sir, I do not envy a clergyman’s life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.’

Boswell’s Life of Johnson, Vol 3.

Pope Francis sees religious vocations as part of the ‘ordinary pastoral life’ of the Church, and his prayer for today asks for each one of us the gifts of boundless compassion, abundant generosity, and radical availability.

Dear friends, on this day in particular, but also in the ordinary pastoral life of our communities, I ask the Church to continue to promote vocations. May she touch the hearts of the faithful and enable each of them to discover with gratitude God’s call in their lives, to find courage to say “yes” to God, to overcome all weariness through faith in Christ, and to make of their lives a song of praise for God, for their brothers and sisters, and for the whole world. May the Virgin Mary accompany us and intercede for us.

Pope Francis, World Day of Prayer for Vocations, 2020.

Prayer for World Day of Prayer for Vocations

• Holy Spirit,  stir within us the passion to promote vocations to the consecrated life, societies of apostolic life, diocesan priesthood, and permanent diaconate.
• Inspire us daily to respond to Your call with boundless compassion, abundant generosity, and radical availability.
• Help us to remember our own baptismal call to rouse us to invite the next generation to hear and respond to Your call.
• Inspire parents, families, and lay ecclesial ministers to begin a conversation with young Catholics to consider how they will live lives of holiness and sacred service.
• Nudge inquirers and motivate discerners to learn more about monastic life, apostolic life, missionaries, cloistered contemplative life, and evangelical Franciscan life.
• Ignite our Church with the confident humility that there is an urgent need for religious sisters, brothers, deacons, and priests to live in solidarity with those who are poor, neglected, and marginalised.
• Disrupt our comfortable lives and complacent attitudes with new ideas to respond courageously and creatively with a daily ‘YES!’  Amen.

* Chancery Courts were concerned with domestic matters including adoptions, custody disputes and divorces; guardianships; sanity hearings; wills; and challenges to constitutionality of state laws.