| Misa
de Apertura del Sínodo Diocesano: 24 Marzo 2006
Given by the Most
Reverend Stephen E. Blaire at the Cathedral of the Annunciation
in Stockton.
FIRE OF GOD’S LOVE, TRANSFORM US FOR MISSION.
FUEGO DEL AMOR DE DIOS, TRANSFORMANOS PARA LA MISION.
More than anything God is love. Dios es amor.
As Pope Benedict said in his first encyclical: “Being
Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty
idea.” (In other words, it is not a matter of ethics
nor ideology.) Rather it is “the encounter with an event,
a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”
“For this reason,” he says “I wish in my
first encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon
us and which we in turn must share with each other.”
Dear brothers and sisters, we enter into our
Synod guided by only one principle: ALL IS LOVE. TODO ES AMOR.
“Tanto amo Dios al mundo que entrego su Hijo Unico para
que todo el que crea en el ….tenga vida eterna. Jn.3:16
FIRE OF GOD’S LOVE, TRANSFORM US FOR MISSION.
FUEGO DEL AMOR DE DIOS, TRANSFORMANOS PARA LA MISION.
We ask God to send the gift of the Holy Spirit
to transform us in mind and heart and soul. The conversion
of the world begins with our own personal transformation.
If you are beyond renewal; if you are beyond a new grace of
redemption and conversion in your life, the Synod will be
an empty gesture for you. La conversion es primordial para
la vida del cristiano. The Church must continuously reform
herself so as to be ever more in conformity with Christ her
Head.
We are not coming together as some kind of business
or corporate structure to set goals in order to sell a product
(even if you were to say that the gospel is our product).
We would fail miserably if we were to use such an approach.
The Synod is a work of grace. El sinodo es obra
de la gracia. We enter into the Synod as God’s instruments
of grace – willing to be transformed by the power of
the gospel; willing to be courageous enough to witness to
our faith in an ever more authentic way in our lives. Somos
los instrumentos de la gracia, transformados por el evangelio.
FIRE OF GOD’S LOVE, TRANSFORM US FOR MISSION.
FUEGO DEL AMOR DE DIOS, TRANSFORMANOS PARA LA MISION.
Our late, beloved John Paul II said: “A
synod is a process which calls us to rediscover the true identity
of the Diocese as a family of communities.” En el Sinodo
encontramos la identidad de la diocesis como una familia de
comunidades.”
The diocese is one large family made up of our parish communities,
our domestic families, our schools, our cultures, our ethnicities,
our spiritual movements, and all our church organizations
and entities. Everyone in the Church has received gifts from
God to be used in service for others. In the Church there
are no volunteers. A true Catholic accepts his or her gifts
from God and uses them in love and service for others. Recibimos
muchos dones de Dios para el servicio de los demas. That is
the whole gospel and that is why the vision for our Synod
is FULL, ACTIVE, CONSCIOUS PARTICIPATION OF OUR PEOPLE IN
THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH. La vision del sinodo es
LA PARTICIPACION PLENA, ACTIVA, CONSCIENTE POR LA GENTE EN
LA VIDA Y LA MISION DE LA IGLESIA. Our mission is love. Nuestra
vida es amor. Jesucristo es el amor encarnado de Dios para
nosotros. Jesus Christ has given us a new commandment: Love
one another as I have loved you. The love we are speaking
of is a divine love that comes from God and is rooted in faith.
When we love God with all our heart and our whole mind and
our whole strength and love our neighbor as our self we become
fully human through divine love.
FIRE OF GOD’S LOVE, TRANSFORM US FOR MISSION.
FUEGO DEL AMOR DE DIOS, TRANSFORMANOS PARA LA MISION.
We celebrate our Synod at a critical time for
believers. We find ourselves enmeshed in a world of war and
terrorism, a world of disease and hunger, a world blatant
with poverty, a world where life is cheap and the unborn can
easily be disposed of. We find ourselves in a highly secularized
culture where God is irrelevant, if not out and out denied.
We find ourselves searching for stability and identity in
a pluralistic society. We live in an inter religious world
of over one billion Christians and almost as many followers
of Islam. Our own Catholic Church is searching for ways to
live in unity with Christ among so many races and cultures.
At this very moment in our own country so many people are
ignoring biblical teaching and the gospel in their attitudes
toward the immigrant. The family is in crisis. And many are
driven by greed for wealth, power and status to the detriment
of the common good. This is the world in which our Synod is
meeting.
FIRE OF GOD’S LOVE TRANSFORM US FOR MISSION.
FUEGO DEL AMOR DE DIOS, TRANSFORMANOS PARA LA MISION.
La iglesia no es una isla en el gran mar del
mundo. La iglesia existe en nuestros barrios, en nuestras
comunidades. The church lives in the world of today. “The
joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties …of
this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted,
these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties
of the followers of Christ.” These are the opening words
from the Pastoral Constitituion of the Church from the Second
Vatican Council. They are our opening words tonight.
Just as we have one principle that will permeate
our Synod consultations: GOD IS LOVE; ALL IS LOVE , so we
will have one criterion for all the pastoral issues to be
discussed: WILL WHAT YOU PROPOSE BRING PEOPLE CLOSER TO CHRIST
AND MAKE A DIFFERNCE IN THE WORLD? LO QUE ESTAN PROPONIENDO,
ACERCARIA MAS LAS PERSONAS A CRISTO Y HARIA UNA DIFERENCIA
EN NUESTRO MUNDO?
The Synod is not a time for small mindedness;
it is not a time for retrenching into the past; it is not
a time for closed minded myopathy. The Synod is a time of
grace. El Sinodo es un tiempo de gracia. The Synod is a time
for conversion. El Sinodo es un momento para la conversion.
The Synod is the time to be transformed in Christ for the
mission of the Church. La mision de la iglesia es de amor.
We place the Synod in the loving care
of Mary under the title of St. Mary of the Annunciation, the
patroness of our diocese. “Yo soy la servidora del Senor;
hagase en mi lo que has dicho.
Last Update March 31, 2006
|
