“Let us ask, in common prayer, to learn silence again: to listen to the voice of the Father, the call of Jesus and the moan of the Holy Spirit. Let us ask that the Synod be a time of brotherhood, a place in which the Holy Spirit cleanses the Church of gossip, ideologies and polarizations,” said His Holiness Pope Francis, presiding on the eve of Ecumenical prayer for the opening of the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality
On Saturday evening, His Holiness Pope Francis led in St. Peter’s Square with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop Welby of Canterbury, and a number of church leaders on the eve of an ecumenical prayer to reflect and invoke the Holy Spirit before the start of the work of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops regarding the synod, which will open on October 4. For the occasion, the Holy Father delivered A speech in which he said “Together”. Together like the first Christian community on the day of Pentecost. Like one flock, beloved, gathered together by one shepherd, Jesus. Like the great crowd in the Book of Revelation, we are here, brothers and sisters “from every nation, tribe, people and tongue,” coming from different groups and countries, daughters and sons of the same Father, moved by the Holy Spirit that they received in baptism, called to the same hope.
Pope Francis continued saying thank you for coming. Thank you to the Taizé community for this initiative. I greet with great affection the heads of the Churches, the leaders and the delegations of the different Christian traditions, and I greet all of you, especially the young people: I thank you for coming to pray for us and with us, in Rome, before the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the eve of the spiritual retreat that precedes it. “Syn-odos”: We walk together, not only Catholics, but all Christians, the entire people of the baptized, the entire people of God, because only by uniting together can there be unity of all. Like the great crowd in the Book of Revelation, we prayed in silence, listening in “great silence.” Silence is important and powerful: it can express indescribable pain in the face of misfortunes, but also, in moments of joy, a joy that goes beyond words. For this reason, I would like to briefly reflect with you on its importance in the life of the believer, in the life of the Church, and in the path of Christian unity.
First, the Holy Father added: Silence is essential in the life of the believer. It is actually at the beginning and end of Christ’s earthly life. The Word, the Word of the Father, became “silence” in the manger and on the cross, on Christmas Eve and on Easter Eve. Tonight, we Christians stood silently before the Cross of Saint Damiano, like disciples listening before the Cross, the seat of the Master. Our silence was not an empty silence, but rather a pause full of waiting and preparation. In a world full of noise, we are no longer accustomed to silence, and sometimes we even get tired of enduring it, because it puts us before God and before ourselves. Yet it is the basis of speech and life. St. Paul says that the secret of the incarnate Word “remained hidden for all eternity,” and he teaches us that silence preserves the secret, just as Abraham preserved the covenant, and as Mary preserved in her womb the life of her son and contemplated it in her heart. On the other hand, the truth does not need violent cries to reach human hearts. God does not like declarations, shouting, gossip, and noise: Rather, as He did with Elijah, He prefers to speak with “the voice of a gentle breeze,” “with a resonant thread of silence.” Therefore, we too, like Abraham, like Elijah, like Mary, need to free ourselves from the noise in order to listen to his voice. Because it is only in our silence that His Word resonates.
Secondly, the Supreme Pontiff continued: Silence is essential in the life of the Church. The Acts of the Apostles says that after Peter’s speech at the Jerusalem Council, “the whole assembly fell silent,” preparing to accept the testimony of Paul and Barnabas about the signs and wonders that God had wrought among the nations. This reminds us that silence, in the ecclesial community, makes possible fraternal communication, in which the Holy Spirit harmonizes points of view. To be synodal means to accept each other in this way, realizing that we all have something to witness and learn, and putting ourselves together in listening to the “Spirit of truth” in order to know what “he says to the churches.” Silence allows for discernment, through attentive listening to the “indescribable groans of the Spirit” that resonate, often invisibly, in the people of God. Let us then ask the Holy Spirit for the gift of listening to the Synod participants: “listening to God, leading to hearing the people’s cries with him; listening to the people, leading to breathing in them the will to which God calls us.”
Finally, the Holy Father added a third saying: Silence is essential in the process of Christian unity. It is, in fact, essential to prayer, from which the ecumenical movement begins and without which it is futile. Jesus, in fact, prayed that his disciples would be “one.” Silence transformed into prayer allows us to accept the gift of unity “as Christ wants it,” “in the ways he wants,” and not as the independent fruit of our efforts and according to purely human criteria. The more we turn together to the Lord in prayer, the more we feel that it is He who purifies us and unites us beyond our differences, because the unity of Christians grows in the silence before the Cross, just like the seeds that we will receive, which represent the different gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to the different traditions: our duty is to sow them, in The certainty that God alone is the one who develops. This will be a sign for us, who in turn are called to die silently to selfishness in order to grow, through the work of the Holy Spirit, in communion with God and in brotherhood among us.
That is why Pope Francis concluded by saying, “In common prayer we ask to learn silence again: to listen to the voice of the Father, to the call of Jesus and to the moan of the Holy Spirit.” We ask that the Synod be a time of brotherhood, and a place where the Holy Spirit cleanses the Church of gossip, ideologies, and polarizations. As we move towards the important anniversary of the Great Council of Nicaea, we ask to know how to worship united and in silence, like the Magi, the mystery of God made man, trusting that the closer we come to Christ, the more united we become with one another. Just as the star of the wise men of the East led us to Bethlehem, so may the heavenly light guide us to our one Lord and to the unity for which he prayed. Let us go out together, eager to meet him, to worship him and to proclaim him “so that the world may believe.”
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2023-09-30 17:18:43
