Family, The Way Of The Church

The Synod on the Family is finally here! Bishops, priests, religious, and lay faithful joined Pope Francis for the opening Mass yesterday. They will be meeting for the next two weeks in order to discuss the synod theme: “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization.”

According to the preparatory document for the synod, those gathered will discuss the “Gospel of the Family,” challenges to this Gospel in the modern world, and openness to life and raising children.

In his homily for the Synod’s opening Mass, Pope Francis said:

Synod Assemblies are not meant to discuss beautiful and clever ideas, or to see who is more intelligent… They are meant to better nurture and tend the Lord’s vineyard, to help realize his dream, his loving plan for his people. In this case the Lord is asking us to care for the family, which has been from the beginning an integral part of his loving plan for humanity.

Let us pray for the Bishops gathered, that they may care for families and show them how to be the “way of the Church.” Let us also ask St. John Paul II, the "pope of the family," to guide and sustain this Synod with his prayers from heaven.

Day Of Prayer For The Synod

Sunday is the universal Day of Prayer for the upcoming Synod of Bishops, who will be addressing “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization.” May Saint John Paul II, the “Pope of the Family,” and the Holy Family intercede for the Synod as we pray:

Jesus, Mary and Joseph,

in you we contemplate

the splendor of true love,

to you we turn with trust.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that our families too
may be places of communion and prayer,

authentic schools of the Gospel
and small domestic Churches.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may families never again
experience violence, rejection and division:

may all who have been hurt or scandalized

find ready comfort and healing.

Holy Family of Nazareth,
may the approaching Synod of Bishops

make us once more mindful
of the sacredness and inviolability of the family,

and its beauty in God’s plan.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph,

graciously hear our prayer.

Amen.

Papal Intentions for November

Pope Benedict XVI’s general intention for the month is for ministers of the Gospel, “That bishops, priests, and all ministers of the Gospel may bear the courageous witness of fidelity to the crucified and risen Lord.” His missionary intention is that, “the pilgrim Church on earth may shine as a light to the nations.”

At the end of the Synod of Bishops, Church leaders released a list of propositions for promoting the New Evangelization. Let us especially pray for our pilgrim Church during these exciting, yet still challenging times. 

Let us also join the Holy Father in praying for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, that they may continue to trust in God and receive the support they need. 

What exactly is a Synod?

At lunch last Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI told Synodal Fathers that the Synod on the New Evangelization reminds him of the Road to Emmaus. He said:

Synodus means “shared walk”, “walking together”, and so the word synodus makes me think of the famous walk of the Lord with the two disciples who were going to Emmaus, who are to an extent an image of the agnostic world of today. Jesus, their hope, had died: the world was empty; it seemed that either God did not exist or had no interest in us. With this despair in their hearts, but still with a little flame of faith, they walk on. The Lord walks mysteriously beside them and helps them to better understand the mystery of God, His presence in history, His silent walking with us. In the end, at supper, when the words of the Lord and their listening have already lit up their hearts and illuminated their minds, they recognize Him at the meal and finally their hearts start to see. Thus in the Synod we are walking together with our contemporaries. We pray to the Lord that He may illuminate us, that He may light up our hearts so they may become prophetic, that He may illuminate our minds; and we pray that at supper, in the Eucharistic communion, we can really be open, see Him and thus also light up the world and give His light to this world of ours.

For more on the definition of “synod,” check out this site.  

The New Evangelization Begins with the Family

North Carolina voters answered Pope Benedict XVI’s prayers earlier this week. His general prayer intention for May is that: “initiatives which defend and uphold the role of the family may be promoted within society.” The people of North Carolina did just that, voting in a constitutional amendment to make marriage between a man and a woman the “only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized.”

The family is the fundamental building block of society. Healthy marriages hold our communities together, and they strengthen the moral fiber of future generations. Pope Benedict said it best last December in his address to the Pontifical Council for the Family:

The family is a source of wealth for married couples, an irreplaceable good for children, an indispensable foundation of society and a vital community for the journey of the Church.

The family is good for husbands, wives, children and society, Pope Benedict said, and it is also good for the Church. He goes on to say:

The new evangelization depends largely on the Domestic Church (cf. ibid., n. 65). In our time, as in times past, the eclipse of God, the spread of ideologies contrary to the family and the degradation of sexual ethics are connected. And just as the eclipse of God and the crisis of the family are linked, so the new evangelization is inseparable from the Christian family. The family is indeed the way of the Church because it is the “human space” of our encounter with Christ.

The Church needs families to be witnesses to the world—to be lights to the world. The Church needs models of the Holy Family. Most of all, the Catholic Church needs the “Domestic Church” for the new evangelization, to pass the beauty of the faith on to future generations. The U.S. Bishops touch on this in their recent publication, Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization: