Cardinal calls for communion, continued action as synod nears end

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As members of the Synod of Bishops entered the last week of their meeting in Rome, the synod's secretary-general urged them to resist the temptation of "covetousness" -- the desire "to keep everything for ourselves, to possess, to hoard, to define, to close."

"We must overcome the temptation to believe that the fruits we have harvested are our work and our possession: we must receive everything as a gift from God," Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Secretariat of the Synod, said in his homily during a votive Mass for the Holy Spirit.

The Mass in St. Peter's Basilica Oct. 21 marked the beginning of the synod's last week of work at the Vatican, a week that was to be dedicated to discussing and amending a final document before putting it to a vote Oct. 26.

Reflecting on the Gospel reading from St. Luke, in which Jesus tells the parable of a man who decides to build larger storehouses after a bountiful harvest, the cardinal drew a parallel to the synod’s work. "We too, faced with the abundant fruits of the synodal journey, might ask ourselves the same question: What to do now?" he said.

Cardinal Grech said that the synodal process has allowed the church to "see the gifts that are flourishing in the people of God today, without hiding our frailties and wounds."

But "we too could run the risk of doing as this man did, of hoarding what we have collected, the gifts of God that we have discovered, without reinvesting them, without living them as gifts received that we must now give back to the church and the world," he said. "We too can run the risk of living off our earnings. But the understanding of truths and pastoral choices goes on, consolidates with the years, develops with time, deepens with age."

The cardinal told delegates, "If we listen to the voice of the Spirit, the conclusion of this synodal assembly will not be the end of something, but a new beginning, so that the Word of God may spread and be glorified."

Dressed in red vestments symbolizing both martyrdom and the Holy Spirit, Cardinal Grech also highlighted another scene from the Gospel reading in which Jesus is asked how to divide an inheritance among brothers. Jesus "refuses to divide, but invites us to seek communion, since he identifies greed and the pursuit of possession as the root of division," the cardinal said.

"Jesus rejects all logic of partisanship and division in the search for communion among brothers and sisters," he said, urging synod delegates to "prepare ourselves in these days to reap the fruits of our synodal journey and of our assembly without dividing ourselves, but seeking communion."

In the first three weeks of the assembly, synod delegates explored themes of synodality articulated in the session's working document: the foundations of a synodal church, relationships within the church, pathways for decision-making and the places where people experience the church in their daily lives.