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SYNOD-MASS Oct-3-2005 (860 words) With photos. xxxi
At opening Mass, pope says Eucharist is way to just society, peace
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- At an opening Mass for the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, Pope Benedict XVI said the Eucharist was the true way to build justice in society and to create peace in human hearts.
He encouraged the synod not only to pronounce "beautiful things" about the Eucharist, but also to experience its power and communicate it to the world.
About 250 synod participants and thousands of others joined the pope in St. Peter's Basilica Oct. 2 for the inaugural Mass, a liturgy marked by a solemn tone and few multicultural flourishes.
Dressed in pale green vestments, the pope read a sermon that explained the Eucharist in simple terms, as the place where "God comes to meet us."
"God is waiting for us. He wants to be loved by us. Shouldn't this appeal touch our hearts?" he said.
But this very encounter, he said, is often hindered by people's indifference. He said today's faithful need to recall the prophet Isaiah's parable of the vineyard and ask themselves: "Is not our Christian life perhaps more vinegar than wine?"
The pope said the refusal to meet God, a phenomenon already described in biblical times, continues today in various forms. In essence, he said, human beings want to possess the world and control their own lives by themselves.
"God is an obstacle for us. Either he is reduced to a simple devotional phrase or is denied altogether, banished from public life, so that he loses all meaning," he said.
Under the popular notion of tolerance, he said, God is accepted as a private opinion but is refused a place of public influence.
"This is not tolerance but hypocrisy," the pope said. Ultimately, it leads not to justice but to a society ruled by power and private interests, he said.
The pope recalled God's "threat of judgment" to people of the Old and New testaments and said it applies to modern Europe and to the West in general.
"We do well if we allow this warning to resound in all its seriousness in our soul, crying out at the same time to the Lord: 'Help us to be converted!'" he said.
He asked the synod to remind people that the Eucharist offers a true sense of hope, built on Christ's saving sacrifice. It helps people to reject the false ideal of self-sufficiency, he said.
The synod marks the close of the Year of the Eucharist proclaimed by Pope John Paul II. The official list of synod members included a record-high 244 bishops and 12 priests from 118 countries.
Pope Benedict invited four bishops from mainland China to the synod, but they were not present for the opening Mass. Vatican sources said it looked doubtful that China would allow them to travel to Rome, but said church officials had not given up hope.
"We have not yet had a definitive response. We continue to hope they can come, even if it is for the last day of the synod," Croatian Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, said at a press conference Oct. 1.
The synod, which ends Oct. 23, was expected to discuss a wide variety of issues connected to the Eucharist, including Sunday Mass attendance, liturgical practices, the belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the shortage of priests, and the church's policy against reception of Communion by Catholics who have divorced and civilly remarried without an annulment.
Pope Benedict did not address any of the specific topics at the opening Mass. In introductory prayers, he asked the Holy Spirit to "enlighten, guide and inspire the synod's work and push us toward charity, harmony and service of the truth."
Speaking afterward at his weekly Sunday blessing, the pope said people might well ask why a synod on the Eucharist was needed. The answer, he said, is that the church's doctrine on the Eucharist needs to be grasped and communicated in new ways that are relevant to modern times.
He said the Eucharist has always been a lens to view the path of the church, which was founded so that "every person can know God's love and find in it the fullness of life."
The pope noted that the synod and the eucharistic year close Oct. 23, World Mission Sunday, highlighting the connection between the Eucharist and missionary activity.
"The Eucharist, in effect, is the central motor of the entire evangelizing action of the church, somewhat like the role of the heart in the human body," he said.
The pope asked for prayers for the success of the synod, including prayers to guardian angels, whose feast day was celebrated Oct. 2.
He also asked people to pray the rosary, which he said was enjoying a revival in the church, thanks in part to the efforts of Pope John Paul. The pope's mention of his predecessor drew a wave of applause from the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square.
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
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