Apostles for Today --February 2022

                               

                            Apostles for Today

Feb 2022

   Theme: Journeying Together

In the last two years, the whole world has been marked by a series of crises and situations, the likes of which we were not used to in our daily lives. We have lived through times of uncertainty, anxiety, fears, bereavements, unemployment, challenges, and preoccupations. How does one face up to all these consequences that the pandemic has brought to the world?

Pope Francis proposes to us and at the same time he challenges us to live the synodal spirit: that is, to journey together on this road of life. At the beginning of Christianity one of the terms that described the Christians was: the followers of the Way.

Once again, today, this reasoning makes a lot of sense: Jesus is the Way and we walk that way, not stationary and merely gazing up at the sky, but with a profound desire to walk the roads of life in order to transform them in signs of the Kingdom of God.

It’s true that we do not walk on our own; we meet many people on the way. On that road we meet people who teach us, who ask us for our help, who question us, who comfort us, who test our patience, persons who we love, and others whom we have difficulty in loving.

Our fidelity to the way of Jesus is that which will determine our attitudes towards these people. To walk along the way of Jesus, and to look at the world with the eyes of Jesus, to have the right attitudes, to fight so that the Gospel values do not disappear from the world. Sacred Scripture, namely the Gospel of Saint Luke chapter 24, verses 13 to 25 is the foundation that makes us reflect on the necessity to journey together.

The Gospel shows us the disciples going to Emmaus. They journey together but they are discouraged, asking themselves whether it was worth the effort to hope, because they had followed a Master who had died on the cross, crucified between two thieves. They felt as if they had chosen the wrong road and that they were alone, no longer having a direction in life.

Jesus met with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He walked with them and he asked them what was the reason for the sadness and the delusion that they were experiencing. In telling their story, they shared questions.

Jesus helped them to remember all that they already knew, showing that there is already enlightenment in the Word of God that gives hope in the face of difficult realities. Emmaus was not an isolated event, it was an experience that the community of believers knew well, something that they continued to experience on their life journey. Our current situation is precious, not because it is beautiful or perfect, but because it is where God is revealing Himself, our God, Who, despite everything, does not abandon us to the caprices of history.

The conversation on the road was a preparation for what would later take place. The companion on the journey is invited to supper. The conversation on the road has re-awakened a sense of welcome for the unknown fellow-traveller, and in what follows he is recognized in the blessing and the breaking of the bread.

We are a Church that recognizes herself as a community of followers of Jesus that gathers around the Eucharistic Bread. Our ecclesial identity is marked with the sign of the presence of the Lord.

The presence of the Risen One is that which brings the Church to birth. A Church nourished by the Eucharist that enables us to journey on the way. A Synodal Church: of communion, participation and mission (theme of the Synod of Bishops).

It is necessary to remember that the Synod is not only an episcopal assembly; it is also a journey for all the faithful. And it is not just an event; it is also a process, a journey, a real and true synodal experience.

In order to live this Synodal journey, one must first welcome the other with his/her questions, his/her challenges, just as Jesus did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Therefore, it is necessary to walk together, to listen to our brothers and sisters and their reality.

The listening has to be reciprocal and transformative in order to make possible the pastoral conversion that creates new paths where ALL (laity, men and women, consecrated persons, deacons, priests, bishops) can discern the direction in which the Lord is calling them. To journey together has to be a journey of authentic growth towards communion and the mission of the Church.

Pope Francis, in his discourse on the occasion of the opening of the Synod on Synodality on October 10th 2021 warns us not to fall into the risks or traps of:

1. Formalism: reducing the Synod to an event which is formal and which is done to fulfil the requirements.

2. Intellectualism: to turn the synod into a kind of study group, but which is disconnected from the reality of the People of God.

3. Complacency: summed up in the expression: “we have always done it this way.” The last risk or trap is perhaps the gravest because such an attitude leaves people stagnant, immobile in the face of present reality and does not accept the new challenges that call for changes to be made. The Gospel of Jesus is the same, yesterday today and forever, but in order to proclaim it today it is important to find the right language, the right way of proclaiming the Gospel in our time.

To journey together is a journey of holiness. Therefore, all our efforts to listen to and to discern that which is better for living the Gospel helps us to become the missionary and the synodal Church.

Let us call on God that He may bless us, that Jesus protect us, that the Holy Spirit give us wisdom and discernment, that the Queen of the Apostles cover us with her Divine Mantle, that Saint Vincent Pallotti encourage us in the mission and that the Pallottine Blesseds accompany us on our journey towards holiness.

Dayse da Conceição Barros da Conceição

President of the National Coordination Council in Brazil.