{"id":16106,"date":"2024-10-29T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T22:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/?p=16106"},"modified":"2025-04-22T19:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T02:11:09","slug":"pope-may-we-be-a-church-on-the-move-sharing-the-joy-of-the-gospel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/2024\/10\/29\/pope-may-we-be-a-church-on-the-move-sharing-the-joy-of-the-gospel\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis: May We Be a Church on the Move, Sharing the Joy of the Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"

(ANS \u2013 Vatican City)<\/strong> \u2013 At the concluding Mass of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Pope Francis encourages us to be like Bartimaeus in today’s Gospel and \u201centrust our blindness to the Lord\u201d in order to be \u201ca missionary Church that walks with her Lord through the streets of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marking the conclusion of the XVIth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Pope Francis presided over the Synod’s closing Mass on Sunday, 27 October, in Saint Peter’s Basilica. The Pope gave thanks to the Lord for the “journey we have made together” in the Synod on Synodality that began three years ago with local, regional and continental meetings, and culminated in month-long October meetings at the Vatican in 2023 and concluding in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newly restored relic of the ancient Chair of Saint Peter and Bernini Baldachin featured prominently in the video coverage of the celebration. The Pope recalled how the Chair represents love, unity, and mercy, and the call to service according to Jesus\u2019 command to the Apostle Peter, while the Baldachin helps us rediscover the glory of the Holy Spirit, \u201cthe true focal point of the entire basilica.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recognizing our own blindness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his homily Pope Francis recalled today\u2019s Gospel narrative of the blind man Bartimaeus who cries out to the Lord, asking to regain his sight. Rediscovering his sight, Bartimaeus joyfully sets out to follow Jesus along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pope explained how Bartimaeus represents the \u201cinner blindness\u201d we all can have that can hold us back from \u201cthe dynamism of life\u201d and having any hope. This can also affect us as Church, the Pope added, where we can become \u201cincapable of perceiving the presence of the Lord, unprepared to face the challenges of reality\u201d and at times unable to respond adequately \u201cto the questions of so many who cry out to us. (\u2026) We cannot remain inert before the questions raised by the women and men of today, before the challenges of our time, the urgency of evangelization and the many wounds that afflict humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pope warned that \u201ca sedentary Church\u201d that \u201cconfines itself to the margins of reality\u201d risks remaining blind and will \u201cfail to grasp the urgency of giving a pastoral response to the many problems of our world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crying out to the Lord<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By remembering that \u201cthe Lord is passing by\u201d, the Church can be like Bartimaeus as a community of disciples who hear the Lord, go out to seek Him, and \u201cfeel the joy of salvation\u2026awakened by the power of the Gospel.\u201d The Church in turn does this \u201cwhen it takes up the cry of all the women and men of the world” who seek the joy of the Gospel, wish to rediscover faith, or are set back by suffering, poverty or marginalization. We do not need a sedentary and defeatist Church, but a Church that hears the cry of the world and gets its hands dirty in serving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the Lord<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as Bartimaeus cried out to the Lord in faith and hope, may we do the same, the Pope said, as we also recognize God\u2019s action in our lives and set out to follow him. Whenever we are set back by weakness or inertia, may we find the strength and courage \u201cto arise and continue along the path\u201d, returning to the Lord and his Gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAgain and again, as (the Lord) passes by, we need to listen to His call so that we can get back on our feet and He can heal our blindness; and then we can follow Him once more, and walk with Him along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Gospel recounts that Bartimaeus \u201cfollowed (the Lord) on the way\u201d, the Pope suggested how this offers an image of the synodal Church when the Lord calls us, helps us up when we are lacking inertia or have fallen, and restores our sight so that \u201cwe can perceive the anxieties and sufferings of the world in the light of the Gospel. Let us remember never to walk alone or according to worldly criteria, but instead to journey together, behind him and alongside him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing the light of the Gospel<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pope emphasized that we need to be \u201ca Church on her feet\u2026not a silent Church, but a Church that embraces the cry of humanity\u201d and is enlightened by Christ bringing the light of the Gospel to others. \u201cNot a static Church, but a missionary Church that walks with her Lord through the streets of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, the Pope gave thanks once again for the synodal journey undertaken and prayed that we may \u201ccontinue our journey together with confidence.\u201d And like Bartimaeus, may be \u201ctake heart\u201d in hearing the Lord\u2019s call, entrusting our blindness to the Lord, rising up and once again carrying \u201cthe joy of the Gospel through the streets of the world (\u2026). This is the synodal Church: a community whose primacy lies in the gift of the Spirit, who makes us all brothers and sisters in Christ and raises us up to him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Thaddeus Jones<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(ANS \u2013 Vatican City) \u2013 At the concluding Mass of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Pope Francis encourages us to be like Bartimaeus in today’s Gospel and \u201centrust our blindness to the Lord\u201d in order to be \u201ca missionary Church that walks with her Lord through the streets of the world.\u201d Marking the conclusion of the XVIth Ordinary General Assembly of the … Continuar leyendo Pope Francis: May We Be a Church on the Move, Sharing the Joy of the Gospel<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":10336596,"featured_media":16108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[516714022],"tags":[35890],"class_list":["post-16106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-salesian-world-news","tag-featured"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/salesianbulletin.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ans-rome-10-29-2024-feature.jpg?fit=1600%2C942&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p59ePG-4bM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10336596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16106"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16123,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16106\/revisions\/16123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}