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A new model of
global development
On Sunday, 25 October
[2009], in St Peter's Basilica, the Holy Father presided at the
Eucharistic Celebration with the Synod Fathers for the conclusion of the
Second Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops. The following is a
translation of his Homily, given in Italian.
Venerable Brothers,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Here is a message of hope for Africa: we have just
listened to the Word of God. It is the message that the Lord of history
never tires of renewing for the oppressed and overcome humanity of every
era and every land, since the time he revealed to Moses his will for the
Israelite slaves of Egypt: "I have witnessed the affliction of my
people... and have heard their cry... so I know well what they are
suffering. Therefore I have come down to rescue them... and lead them
out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk
and honey" (Ex 3:7-8). What is this land? Is it not the Kingdom of
Reconciliation, Justice and Peace, to which all of humanity is called?
God's plan does not change. It is the same as that prophesied by
Jeremiah, in the magnificent oracles called "The Book of Consolation",
from which today the First Reading is taken. It is an announcement of
hope for the people of Israel, laid low by the invasion of the army of
Nebuchadnezzar, by the devastation of Jerusalem and the Temple and the
deportation to Babylonia. A message of joy for the "remainder" of
Jacob's sons, which announces a future for them, because the Lord will
lead them back to their lands, by a straight and easy road. The persons
needing support, like the blind or the crippled, the pregnant woman and
the woman in labor, will all experience the strength and tenderness of
the Lord: he is a father for Israel, ready to care for it as if it were
his firstborn (cf. Jet 31:7-9).
God's plan does not change. Through the centuries and
turns of history, he always aims at the same finality: the Kingdom of
liberty and peace for all. And this implies his predilection for those
deprived of freedom and peace, for those violated in their dignity as
human beings. We think in particular of our brothers and sisters who in
Africa suffer poverty, diseases, injustice, wars and violence, forced
migration. These favorite children of the heavenly Father are like the
blind man in the Gospel, Bartimaeus (Mk 10:46) at the gates of Jericho.
Jesus the Nazarene passed that way. It is the road that leads to
Jerusalem, where the Paschal Event will take place, his sacrificial
Easter, towards which the Messiah goes for us. It is the road of his
exodus which is also ours: the only way that leads to the land of
reconciliation, justice and peace.
On that road, the Lord meets Bartimaeus, who has lost
his sight. Their paths cross, they become a single path. The blind man
calls out, full of faith "Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!". Jesus
replies: "Call him!", and adds: "What do you want me to do for you?".
God is light and the Creator of light. Man is the son of
light, made to see the light, but has lost his sight, and is forced to
beg. The Lord, who became a beggar for us, walks next to him: thirsting
for our faith and our love. "What do you want me to do for you?". God
knows the answer, but asks; he wants the man to speak. He wants the man
to stand up, to find the courage to ask for what is needed for his
dignity. The Father wants to hear in the son's own voice the free choice
to see the light once again, the light, the reason for Creation.
"Master, I want to see!" And Jesus says to him: 'Go your way; your faith
has saved you'. Immediately he received his sight and followed him on
the way" (Mk 10:51-52).
Dear Brothers, we give thanks because this "mysterious
encounter between our poverty and the greatness" of God was achieved
also in the Synodal Assembly for Africa that has ended today. God
renewed his call: "Take courage! Get up..." (Mk 10:49). And the Church
in Africa, through its Pastors, having come from all the countries in
the continent, from Madagascar and the other islands, has embraced the
message of hope and light to walk on the path that leads to the Kingdom
of God. "Go your way; your faith has saved you" (Mk 10:52). Yes, faith
in Jesus Christ
—
when properly understood and experienced
—
guides men and peoples to liberty in truth, or, to use the three words
of the Synodal theme, to reconciliation, to justice and to peace.
Bartimaeus who, healed, follows Jesus along the road, is the image of
that humanity that, illuminated by faith, walks on the path towards the
promised land. Bartimaeus becomes in turn a witness of the light,
telling and demonstrating in the first person about being healed,
renewed, regenerated.
This is the Church in the world: a community of
reconciled persons, operators of justice and peace; "salt and light"
amongst the society of men and nations. Therefore the Synod strongly
confirmed
—and manifested this
—
that the Church is the Family of God, in which there can be no divisions
based on ethnic, language or cultural groups. Moving witnesses showed us
that, even in the darkest moments of human history, the Holy Spirit is
at work and transforming the hearts of the victims and the persecutors,
that they may know each other as brothers. The reconciled Church is the
potent leaven of reconciliation in each country and in the whole African
continent.
The Second Reading offers
another perspective: the Church, the community that follows Christ on
the path of love, has a sacerdotal form. The category of priesthood, as
the interpretive key of the Mystery of Christ and, consequently, of the
Church, was introduced in the New Testament, by the author of the Letter
to the Hebrews. His intuition originates from Psalm 110, quoted in
today's words, where the Lord God assures the Messiah with a solemn
promise: "You are a priest for ever of the order of Melchizedek" (Ps
110:4). A reference which leads to another, taken from Psalm 2, in which
the Messiah announces the Lord's decree which says about him: "You are
my son, today have I fathered you" (Ps 2:7). From these texts
derives the attribution to Jesus Christ of a sacerdotal character, not
in the generic sense, rather "of the order of Melchizedek", in other
words the supreme and eternal priesthood, of divine not human origins.
If each supreme priest "is taken from among men and made their
representative before God" (Heb 5:1), He alone, Christ, the Son of God,
possesses a ministry that can be identified to his own person, a
singular and transcendent ministry, on which universal salvation relies.
Christ transmitted this ministry of his to the Church through the Holy
Spirit; therefore the Church has in itself, in each of its members,
because of Baptism, a sacerdotal characteristic. However
—
here is a decisive aspect
—
the priesthood of Jesus Christ is no longer primarily ritual, rather it
is existential. The dimension of the rite is not abolished, but, as
clearly seen in the institution of the Eucharist, takes its meaning from
the Paschal Mystery, which completes the ancient sacrifices and
surpasses them. Thus contemporarily a new sacrifice, a new ministry and
a new temple are born, and all three coincide with the Mystery of Jesus
Christ. United to him through the Sacraments, the Church prolongs its
saving action, allowing man to be healed, like the blind man Bartimaeus.
Thus the ecclesial community, in the steps of its Master and Lord, is
called to walk decisively along the path of service, to share the
condition of men and women in its time, to witness to all the love of
God and thus sow hope.
Dear friends, this message
of salvation is always transmitted by the Church by joining
evangelization and the promotion of humanity. Let us take the example of
the historical Encyclical Popolorum Progressio: what the Servant
of God Paul VI elaborated in terms of reflection, the missionaries
created and continue to create in the field, promoting a development
that respects local cultures and the environment, following a logic that
now, more than 40 years later, appears to be the only one capable of
allowing the African people to emerge from the slavery of hunger and
sickness. This means transmitting the announcement of hope, following a
"sacerdotal form", that is, living the Gospel in the first person,
trying to translate it into projects and undertakings that are
consistent with its principle dynamic foundation, which is love. In
these three weeks, the Second Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod
of Bishops has confirmed what my venerable Predecessor John Paul II had
already clearly focused on, and that I also wanted to look at more
closely in the recent Encyclical Caritas in Veritate: what
is necessary, therefore, is the renewal of the model of global
development, in such a way that it be capable of "including within its
range all peoples and not just the better off' (n. 39). What the social
doctrine of the Church has always maintained is what is required today
of globalization (cf. ibid.). This
—
we must remember
—
should not be understood fatalistically as though its dynamics were
produced by anonymous impersonal forces or structures independent of the
human will. Globalization is a human reality and as such can be modified
in line with one or another cultural impositions. The Church works with
its personalist and community concept to steer the globalization of
humanity in relational terms, in terms of communion and the sharing of
goods (cf. ibid.
n. 42).
"Take courage! Get up"...
This is how the Lord of life and hope addresses the Church and peoples
of Africa at the end of these weeks of Synodal reflection. Get up,
Church in Africa, Family of God, because you are being called by the
Heavenly Father whom your ancestors invoked as Creator, before knowing
his merciful closeness, revealed in his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
Set out on the path of a new evangelization with the courage that comes
from the Holy Spirit. The urgent action of evangelization which has been
spoken about so much in these days also involves an urgent appeal for
reconciliation, an indispensable condition for instilling in Africa
justice among men and building a fair and lasting peace that respects
each individual and people; a peace that requires and is open to the
contribution of all people of good will irrespective of their religious,
ethnic, linguistic, cultural and social backgrounds. In such a
challenging mission, pilgrim Church in Africa of the third millennium,
you are not alone. The whole Catholic Church is near to you with its
prayer and active solidarity, and from heaven you are accompanied by the
African saints who, with their lives to the point of martyrdom
sometimes, testified to the fullness of their faith in Christ.
Courage! Get up, African
continent, land that welcomed the Savior of the World when as a child he
had to take refuge with Joseph and Mary in Egypt to save his life from
the persecution of King Herod. Welcome with renewed enthusiasm the
Gospel proclamation so that the Face of Christ may light with its
splendor the multiplicity of cultures and languages of your peoples. As
it offers the bread of the Word and the Eucharist, the Church also
undertakes to operate, with every means at its disposal, to ensure that
no African should be deprived of his or her daily bread. For this
reason, along with the work of primary importance of evangelization,
Christians are actively involved in interventions in favor of promoting
humanity.
Dear Synodal Fathers, at
the end of these reflections of mine, I want to salute you most warmly,
and thank you for your edifying participation. Return home, you, pastors
of the Church in Africa, take my blessing to your communities. Transmit
to everyone the oft-heard appeal of this Synod for reconciliation,
justice and peace. As the Synodal Assembly draws to a close, I have to
renew my most vivid thanks to the General Secretariat of the Synod of
Bishops and all their collaborators. I express my grateful thoughts to
the choirs of the Nigerian community in Rome and the Ethiopian College
who are contributing to the celebration of this liturgy. And finally I
would like to thank everyone who has accompanied the Synodal work with
their prayer. May the Virgin Mary recompense each and every one of them,
and allow the Church in Africa to grow in every part of that great
continent, spreading the "salt" and "light" of the Gospel everywhere.
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