Group Work

You know, every time I hear about these bishops breaking into language-based working groups as the Synod, I have to wonder if they're sitting around on folding chairs, staring dully at a heavy-set woman with dyed-blond hair in a burnt-orange pantsuit ('cause Halloween's coming!), wielding butcher-block paper, markers,  and a pack of color-coded dot stickers, exhorting them to brainstorm and prioritize!

Did they have ice-breakers?

Probably not.

Anyway, Here's the official Vatican account of yesterday's proceedings. There are three Anglo groups. Two are led by Rigali and Cormac-O'Connor, with Martin and Wuerl being the relators of those same groups.

Some highlights:

From the Melkite patriarch:

Through it each Christian becomes a paschal man. The Church, in celebrating the Eucharist, becomes herself a paschal presence of Christ in the world.

On this subject, I would like to insist on not only the theological meaning of the three Sacraments of Christian initiation: Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist. It is not only a theological connection, like that presented in the chapter on the relationship between the Eucharist and the other Sacraments (pages 14-16), but there is also a Biblical relationship, which has its starting point in the concept of the economy of salvation: the Father created, the Son saved and gave the Sacrament of the Eucharist. (Lk 22:19: “do this in remembrance of me”) and the Holy Spirit vivifies.

An Archbishop from Argentina:

Since many SHADOWS have been found in the Eucharist celebrated by the Church, some LIGHTS should also be pointed out. Thus the same obscurity can be the better pondered, and paths of reflection opened in hope.

From Ecuador:

In Ecuador, as in some countries, one must face three realities:- Numerous baptized people wish to receive the Sacraments without pre-sacramental catechesis, for many the only opportunity to know and love Jesus. - Some priests resort to an inappropriate reading of the affirmation that the Sacraments are “ex opere operato” instruments of Grace. - Some educators consider as catechesis the obligatory classes of theoretical religious instruction.

The strong wind of secularism, in some European Christian communities with deep roots in the Gospel, will pass by like a long, probably drawn out, a winter. God willing, a new Spring will come, because they have deep roots in the Gospel.

Evangelization, in my country, has strong expressions of Christian devotion, which we respect; but the roots of evangelization are not deep. It is urgent to deepen in them, before the secularizing wind arrives in our countries.

From Greece:

The community and ecclesial dimension of the Eucharist therefore forms the quintessence of the Eucharistic mystery. However, I have the impression that this Eucharistic reality is the most ignored one and the least understood by our faithful at least in practice. One has the sensation that, in the Eucharistic vision of our faithful, an individualistic, over-pious and intimist practice of the Eucharist prevails to the detriment of its prevalently communion and ecclesial aspect. In practice, there is the unconscious tendency to divide Christ the Head from His Body. One wishes to communicate with “Jesus” without communicating with the whole of Christ, Head and limbs. Hence, one falls once again into legalism: Sunday becomes a ritual day of obligation to be observed and not just a life to share in communion and love. The statement “the Eucharist makes the Church” means that every Eucharistic celebration must dynamically transform, more and more, the believers into lively “ecclesial communities”, shape them more and more into a living organism, in the living Body of Christ.

From Colombia:

The Eucharist is the answer to the negative signs of contemporary culture. In first place, in contrast with the culture or anti-culture of death which traffics with arms, which builds massive systems of destruction, which legitimizes abortion, which authorizes research using human embryos, Jesus defines himself and gives himself to us as “Bread of Life”. In second place, our culture is marked with hatred and terrorism: September 11th, March 11th, the London Underground... The Eucharist is the permanent possibility of reconciliation with God and our brothers and the invitation to reconcile ourselves with one another before offering worship to the Lord; from that point it is normal that the “rite of peace”, renewed in the liturgical reform is so deeply felt in many communities.
Another contemporary feature is scientific positivism and relativism; but in the Eucharist the reality of “mystery”, and the validity of believing and loving as ways of knowledge, are affirmed; with Eucharistic faith, sustained in the ecclesial tradition based on the words of the Lord, we have access to authentic although imperfect certainties. Finally, faced with the solitude and despair which confront modern man, the Eucharist offers us - as it did the disciples of Emmaus - a profound company and a promise of eternal life which fills us with definitive hope

The head of the Pontifical Council of the Laity:

The Eucharistic celebration constitutes a privileged place where one achieves the full, mature and coherent Christian identity of the lay faithful. Because it is in the Eucharist that a lay Christian fully realizes his participation in the triple mission entrusted to him by Christ: priestly, prophetic and royal. The priestly mission: in the Eucharist the Christian discovers his doxological vocation, he discovers that his whole life in all its dimensions must become a spiritual worship and a spiritual sacrifice united to the one of Christ. The prophetic mission: the Eucharist opens up to the mission, that is the Christian testimony in the world and the proclamation of the Word of God right up to the ends of the world.

Senegal:

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus brings revives the son of the widow of Nain and gives him back to his mother and to the community. It is possible to establish a parallel between Africa-the mother and the widow. The children of her womb are all the Africans, the African populations, who must face under development and under development. However, the compassion of Christ our Lord was practiced in favor of the widow-Africa thanks to the missionaries, of all the Congregations together, who brought the Gospel and the Eucharist.
Unfortunately, faced with the immense aspiration of this Africa at its rebirth to a new life, many obstacles and threatening shadows arise.

Comments

[LC]

Did they have ice-breakers?

Ha! I'm picturing them doing the one with the toilet paper...or the M&Ms. ;-)

[Todd]

Ice-breakers ... hmm ... I was thinking back to 1989 on a youth retreat when the girls played "pile of guys." It was a mess, but hilariously fun. How would these dudes adapt it? Piles of cardinals?

The last blonde who led a session I attended ... was thirtysomething, and certainly not dyed into her looks, which were quite pleasant. Better, she was deeply intelligent and prayerful and was a dream to work with.

I think if I were in Rome for three weeks, I'd have taken care of the icebreaking walking and talking with my friends in cafes and tourist sites, a luxury lay people (or confirmation candidates) rarely get when they are sent away by their pastors (or parents).

The Argentinian is right, by the way. Pointless as it sounds, looking for the strengths of Eucharistic celebrations around the world and in various places is essential, even if one only wants to diagnose the problems.

[Terrence Berres]

"... wielding butcher-block paper, markers, and a pack of color-coded dot stickers, exhorting them to brainstorm and prioritize!"

I assume she's reading the exhortation from her PowerPoint slides while we read them in the printed handouts.

[Jules]

All that Deep Thought about the Eucharist and I too am stuck on the idea of Episcopal icebreakers. :)

"I love my neighbor who... likes wearing Birkenstocks!"

[The Leper]

I cannot take seriously any enterprise that does not involve a Lay Facilitator.
Although allowances can be made if they use the word "image" as a verb a great enough number of times. Points subtracted for Anglophones who use "the" before any noun, but especially Liturgy, Eucharist, Church...

[Peggy]

Can I ask a dumb question?

--What is the objective of the synod?
--I have been trying to find some focused description as to the topics involved. The agenda apears to include anything having anything to do with our belief about, distribution of and reception of Our Lord, plus anything else about the Eucharist. Can any one provide any clarification of these points to me? Any doc's from the Vatican to help me understand. I've not seen clear enough info in news articles I've been reading. Maybe my expectation of focus is off base and I'm expecting something more narrow.
--Do they plan to come away with some revised Church policy/belief? Or a learned paper restating Church belief..?

Thanks. Sorry to be such an idiot on this.

[Caroline]

Right on Peggy. Has anyone at the Synod said anything we haven't heard before?

[Peggy]

Caroline,

Thanks! I thought it was just me being unable to absorb wisdom beyond my own abilities. I confess, however, that my questions were serious.

[Odon de Castro]

Yes, Cardinal Ratzinger had said everything to know about the Eucharist.