Archbishop exhorts bishops to do pastoral work ‘on their knees’
CORNWALL, Ont. (CCN)
Canada’s Apostolic Nuncio exhorted Canadian bishops Sept. 26 to do pastoral ministry ‘on their knees’ before God and before Christ in the people they serve.
Addressing the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops annual plenary Sept. 26-30, Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi recalled Pope Francis’ description of Pope Benedict XVI doing theology ‘on his knees,’ and added, kneeling in pastoral ministry is “no less essential.”
He urged the more than 80 bishops and eparchs from across Canada to listen to what God will say to them, “knowing that He himself, who has called us to undertake the arduous and enthusiastic journey of apostolic ministry, will not fail to show us the way.”
In addition to ‘kneeling before God,” Archbishop Bonazzi urged the bishops to also kneel “before each brother and sister as ‘servants of God’ present in every human being.”
He reminded them of Pope Francis’ concern pastors remain rooted with the flock they serve “from within,” sometimes ahead leading, sometimes retracing steps to ensure no one is left behind, and standing in the middle to know the “pulse of the people,” as expressed to Cardinal Ouellet in a letter last March.
“‘Pastoral Ministry kneeling’ is necessary especially in times where we seem not to catch anything (cf. Luke 5:5), in moments when the sea is rough and the wind is contrary, when it seems that the Lord is asleep,” the Nuncio said. “We have to remember — especially in these moments — that on the barque of the Church there is the Lord, that the barque of the Church is not mine, nor ours, but is the Lord’s.”
“And the Lord will not allow it to sink,” he said. “It is the Lord who guides it and who asks for this goal: our collaboration, humble but also full and generous.”
The Nuncio also spoke of Pope Francis’ desire for reform, not only of the Roman Curia, but also of the Church, so as “to conform herself personally and communally, to her original form who is Christ.”
Pope Francis also sees “synodality” as fundamental to the Church’s reform, Archbishop Bonazzi said.
“In his speech of October 17, 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops Pope Francis affirmed: ‘Church and Synod are synonymous’ because the Church is nothing other than ‘the journeying together’ of the People of God along the paths of history towards the encounter with the Risen Jesus who is coming.”
Pope Francis described the Church as an inverted pyramid, where the only authority is Christ’s and that of service, he said, noting the “synodal Church is a listening Church.”
“Pope Francis sees in the exercise of synodality, at all levels, the primary criterion to verify the reform of the Catholic Church and of her ‘pastoral conversion,'” he said. “It falls to us to draw out the consequences of the same in the exercise of our episcopal ministry: in the relationships among us bishops, with the priests, with the multiple expressions of consecrated life, and with the holy People of God.”
The Nuncio also asked the Canadian bishops to view their annual plenary “renewed experience of the Cenacle,” that “place where Pentecost happens, where the Holy Spirit creates and renews the Church.”
Instead of a “formal and protocolled event,” he urged the bishops “to open yourselves to the dynamic action of the Spirit” who not only is an expert on the “depths of God, but also of the human heart.”
“Be certain, dear brother bishops, that it is the Spirit of the Risen Lord who has called you together,” Archbishop Bonazzi said. “He, present among you, will surprise you. Through your works, through your personal meetings or in small groups, through your conversations maybe not foreseen but always aroused by Him, the Spirit will be able to enrich you with a new light, give you a new idea, capture your attention on a new initiative… so in order to make you capable to give not old answers, but new answers to the new questions that the present time sets before the Church and her Pastors.”
“I wish that each one of you will leave from this Plenary Assembly enriched by the new spark that the Holy Spirit has prepared for you, to console you and to make your ministry as Pastors fruitful,” he said. “Never forgetting that new ideas, new solutions, are not found in manuals, but are the fruit of a communitarian discernment that demands patience and sometimes, suffering. It is our daily Easter: the encounter and the embrace of the cross.”
