Synod on Synodality retreat aims for ‘renewed’ Pentecost through Mary and the rosary

Kristina Millare   By Kristina Millare for CNA

September 30, 2024 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 0 Print

 

Cardinal Mario Grech and Pope Francis at the conclusion of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 28, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Sep 30, 2024 / 17:10 pm (CNA).

Secretary-General of the Synod of Bishops Cardinal Mario Grech opened a two-day retreat on Monday for participants of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, encouraging synod participants and the Catholic faithful to pray the holy rosary for the duration of the Oct. 2–27 global meeting.

“I would like to invite everyone, in this month of October devoted to Mother Mary, to pray with the holy rosary during the synod so that this prayer may accompany us on the journey of these days,” Grech said. “The rosary is an endless rumination of the word of God.”

“Let us invoke together this month Mother Mary, model of the Church, so that the synodal assembly that begins its journey today may be a renewed Pentecost,” he added.

All 464 voting and nonvoting participants in the year’s synod meeting — including bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople — were invited to attend a retreat at the Vatican in preparation for synod discussions, which will start on Wednesday and include themes of pastoral care and formation, ecclesial structures, and the clarification of Church teachings and doctrine.

The retreat included the communal prayer of lauds led by Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini, OSB; two guided meditations given by Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, spiritual adviser to the synod; time for personal prayer within the walls of the Vatican; and Mass in the evening.

Mary: a model of prayer for the Church

At the beginning of the retreat, Grech reiterated the primary importance of prayer: “We begin our journey with the days of retreat. They are not a preparation for the synod but an integral part of it.”

“In fact, the synod cannot but be a prayer, a liturgy, in which the main actor is not us but the Holy Spirit,” he said to approximately 400 people gathered in the Vatican’s New Synod Hall for a time of prayer and reflection.

Grech gifted each participant with rosary beads from the Holy Father and exhorted those on retreat to turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the “model and image of the Church,” to learn to be a listening Church with a “synodal style.”

“Mary is for us today a model of prayer as we live these intense days of the synodal assembly,” Grech said.

“Mary is also a synodal woman because with her life she teaches us that the Church — as emerges from the teaching and theological reflection of Benedict XVI — is not the work of our hands but the work of God.”

Radcliffe to retreatants: ‘Breathe deeply’ of the Holy Spirit

During his morning meditations, Radcliffe said the “challenge of the synod is for us to help each other to breathe deeply the rejuvenating Holy Spirit who makes us alive, young, in God.”

“Let us give each other breathing space. The oxygen of the breath. The oxygen of the Holy Spirit,” Radcliffe said to his listeners.

“This indestructible peace does not mean that we live in perfect harmony. We are gathered in this assembly because we do not,” he said. “But no discord can destroy our peace in Christ, for we are one in him.”

Reflecting on the four Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, Radcliffe said the disciples, who received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, “share in [Jesus’] risen life” and are “ready to be sent out to preach.”

“The mission of the synodal Church calls us to be like Mary Magdalene, the beloved disciple [John], and Peter — ‘searchers’ for the risen Lord,” he said. “We, too, must be close to the ‘searchers’ of our time, but we shall only become preachers of the Resurrection if we are alive in God.”

The Oct. 2–27 meeting to be held in the Vatican with Pope Francis will close the discernment phase of the Synod on Synodality. The conclusions of both the 2023 and 2024 global sessions — as accepted and approved by the pope — are then expected to be implemented in all local Churches with the purpose of creating a listening and more participative Catholic Church worldwide.

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It’s official: Paul VI and Oscar Romero will be canonized

March 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Mar 7, 2018 / 05:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican announced Wednesday that Pope Francis has recognized a second miracle allowing five people on the path to sainthood to be canonized, the most prominent being Bl. Pope Paul VI and Bl. Oscar Romero.

With a second miracle approved, the path has been cleared for a date to be set for the canonization of each of the five candidates, allowing them to officially be declared a saint.

Though no date has yet been announced, both Paul VI and Oscar Romero are expected to be canonized together during the Synod of Bishops in October.

Born as Giovanni Montini in 1897 in the town of Concesio in the Lombardy region of Italy, the future Pope Paul VI was ordained a priest at the age of 22. He served as Archbishop of Milan prior to his election as Bishop of Rome in 1963.

As pope, he oversaw much of the Second Vatican Council, which had been opened by Pope St. John XXIII, and in 1969 promulgated a new Roman Missal. He died in 1978, and was beatified by Pope Francis Oct. 19, 2014.

Pope Francis himself unofficially confirmed the news of Paul VI’s canonization during his annual meeting with the priests of Rome Feb. 17. However, the Vatican’s announcement makes it official.

Apart from his role in the council, Paul VI is most widely know for his landmark encyclical Humanae Vitae, which was published in 1968 and reaffirmed the Church’s teaching against contraception in wake of the sexual revolution. This year marks the 50th anniversary the historic encyclical, making the canonization of the author all the more relevant.

Both miracles attributed to Paul VI’s intercession involve the healing of an unborn child.

Bl. Oscar Romero, who was beatified by Pope Francis May 23, 2015, in El Salvador, was the archbishop of the nation’s capital city of San Salvador. He was shot while celebrating Mass March 24, 1980, during the birth of a civil war between leftist guerrilla forces and the dictatorial government of the right.

An outspoken critic of the violence and injustices being committed at the time, Romero was declared a martyr who was killed in hatred of the faith for his vocal defense of human rights.

The Vatican made the announcement about the acceptance of the miracles March 7, following a meeting between Pope Francis and Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the day before.

During the meeting, Francis advanced a total of 13 saints’ causes, recognizing at least one person as a martyr and allowing one religious sister to be beatified.

In addition to Paul VI and Oscar Romero, the Pope approved a second miracle for three other saints’ causes, allowing for their canonization. The new saints-to-be are: Bl. Francesco Spinelli, a diocesan priest and founder of the Institute of the Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament; Bl. Vincenzo Romano, a diocesan priest from Torre de Greco in Italy; and Bl. Maria Caterina Kasper, a German nun and founder of the Institute of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ.  

Pope Francis also recognized a first miracle attributed to Maria Felicia di Gesu Sacramento, a Discalced Carmelite nun from Paraguay who died in 1959, allowing for her to be beatified and receive the title “blessed.”

Additionally, he recognized the martyrdom of Slavic laywoman Anna Kolesárová. Born in Vysoká nad Uhom, Slovakia in 1928, she was killed by a drunken Soviet soldier near the end of the Second World War in 1944 for refusing his sexual advances.

At the time, Soviet troops were passing through Kolesárová’s district, which was then a part of Hungary, and occupied her village on the way. When one soldier entered her home and found the family in hiding, he attempted to sleep with Kolesárová, threatening her with death if she did not.  

However, raised in a pious Catholic family, Kolesárová refused, and was shot in front of her family at the age of 16.

In addition to these causes, Pope Francis also recognized the heroic virtue of six people, allowing them to be called “venerable.”

Among these causes are: Polish Fr. Bernardo ?ubie?ski of the Congregation of the Holy Redeemer; Cecilio Maria Cortinovis, an Italian Franciscan religious; Italian Sisters Giustina and Maria Schiapparoli, who founded the order of the Benedictine Sisters of Divine Providence of Voghera; Italian laywoman Antonella Bordoni, founder of the Lay Fraternity of the Little Daughters of the Mother of God; and Italian laywoman Alessandra Sabattini.

[…]

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