VATICAN CITY (CNS) — As the Synod of Bishops finished its work, Pope Francis called on all Catholics to defend the Church from those who are influenced by the “great accuser” seeking to destroy it.
After thanking the synod members, observers and experts following the vote on the final document, the pope said that although Church members are sinful, “our mother (the Church) is holy,” but “because of our sins, the great accuser always takes advantage.”
While in some parts of the world, Christians suffer persecution because of their faith in Jesus, there is “another type of persecution – continuous accusations – in order to dirty the Church. The Church cannot be dirtied. The children, yes, we are all dirty, but not the mother. Therefore, this is the time to defend the mother,” he said.
“It is a difficult moment,” he continued, “because through us, the great accuser wants to attack the mother. And no one touches the mother!”
Before concluding the synod’s final meeting, Iraqi Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako of Baghdad, the Chaldean Catholic patriarch and synod president-delegate, said the synod “was a gift for us and for the whole Church.”
Cardinal Sako also appealed to the pope, the synod members and young people to not forget about the plight of Christians in the Middle East.
“If the Middle East is emptied of Christians, Christianity will be left without its roots,” he said. “We need your humanitarian and spiritual support as well as your solidarity, friendship and closeness until the storm passes.”
The patriarch also reiterated the support of the world’s bishops for Pope Francis. Citing an Arab saying, Cardinal Sako told the pope that “the fruitful tree is struck with stones.”
“Go forward with courage and trust,” he told the pope. “The barque of Peter is not like other ships. The barque of Peter, despite the waves, remains firm because Jesus is inside, and he will never leave it.”
Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, also expressed the assembly’s “filial affection and profound adherence to your Petrine ministry.”
Addressing the young people who served as synod observers, Cardinal Baldisseri thanked them for “their presence, their contributions, their interventions and their suggestions. They have show us the freshness of their youth, their generosity, imagination and resourcefulness.”
In his off-the-cuff remarks, Pope Francis also thanked the young men and women at the synod “who brought their music here to us in the hall.”
“Music is the diplomatic word for uproar,” he said to laughter and applause.
The synod, he said, “is not a parliament” but rather “a protected space for the Holy Spirit to act.”
The fruit of the synod, he added, is not just a final document for Catholics around the world, but a work of the Spirit that must first “do something in us, it must work in us.”
“We are the recipients of the (final) document. It is primarily for us. Yes, it will help many others, but we are the first recipients. The Holy Spirit did this among us. Do not forget this, please,” Pope Francis said.
“It is the Holy Spirit who gave us this document, for all us including myself, to reflect on what he wants to tell us,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of all adult Catholics, Pope Francis formally closed the Synod of Bishops by asking young people for forgiveness.
“Forgive us if often we have not listened to you; if, instead of opening our hearts, we have filled your ears. As Christ’s church, we want to listen to you with love” because young people’s lives are precious in God’s eyes and “in our eyes, too,” the pope said in his homily Oct. 28.
The Mass, celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica, closed a month-long synod on young people, faith and vocational discernment. The pope thanked the 300 synod members, experts, observers and ecumenical delegates for working in communion, with frankness and with the desire to serve God’s people.
“May the Lord bless our steps, so that we can listen to young people, be their neighbors and bear witness before them to Jesus, the joy of our lives,” he said in his homily.
Living the faith and sharing it with the world, especially with young people, entails going out to those in need, listening, being close to them and bearing witness to Jesus’ liberating message of salvation, he said.
The pope used the day’s Gospel reading (Mk 10:46-52) and its account of Jesus helping Bartimaeus as a model of how all Christians need to live out and share the faith.
Bartimaeus was blind, homeless and fatherless, and he begged for Jesus’ mercy as soon as he heard he was near, the pope said. Many rebuked the man, “telling him to be silent.”
“For such disciples, a person in need was a nuisance along the way, unexpected and unplanned,” the pope said. Even though they followed Jesus, these disciples wanted things to go their way and preferred talking over listening to others, he said.
“This is a risk constantly to guard against. Yet, for Jesus, the cry of those pleading for help is not a nuisance but a challenge,” the pope said.
Jesus goes to Bartimaeus and lets him speak, taking the time to listen, Pope Francis said. “This is the first step in helping the journey of faith: listening. It is the apostolate of the ear: listening before speaking.”
The next step in the journey of faith, the pope said, is to be a neighbor and do what is needed, without delegating the duty to someone else.
Jesus asks Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” showing the Lord acts “not according to my own preconceived ideas, but for you, in your particular situation. That is how God operates. He gets personally involved with preferential love for every person.”
Being present and close to people’s lives “is the secret to communicating the heart of the faith, and not a secondary aspect,” the pope said.
“When faith is concerned purely with doctrinal formulae, it risks speaking only to the head without touching the heart,” he said. “And when it is concerned with activity alone, it risks turning into mere moralizing and social work.”
Being a neighbor, the pope said, means bringing the newness of God into other people’s lives, fighting the “temptation of easy answers and fast fixes” and of wanting to “wash our hands” of problems and responsibility.
“We want to imitate Jesus and, like him, to dirty our hands,” just as “the Lord has dirtied his hands for each one of us,” he said. “Let us look at the cross, start from there and remember that God became my neighbor in sin and death.”
When “we too become neighbors, we become bringers of new life. Not teachers of everyone, not specialists in the sacred, but witnesses of the love that saves,” Pope Francis said.
The third step in the journey of faith, he said, is to bear witness, particularly to those who are seeking life and salvation, but who “often find only empty promises and few people who really care.”
Stay Connected With Us