Sunday, October 28, 2012

Pope Benedict: New Evangelisation requires the hearts of the faithful to be animated by the fire of the Spirit



At Mass today in St Peter's Rome, Pope Benedict preached on the Gospel Reading - Mark 10:46-52 - that tells of Jesus healing blind Bartimaeus. For Mark, said Pope Benedict, Bartimaeus is "a model. He was not blind from birth, but he lost his sight. He represents man who has lost the light and knows it, but has not lost hope: he knows how to seize the opportunity to encounter Jesus and he entrusts himself to him for healing." He went on, "Bartimaeus, on regaining his sight from Jesus, joined the crowd of disciples, which must certainly have included others like him, who had been healed by the Master. New evangelisers are like that: people who have had the experience of being healed by God, through Jesus Christ."

The Mass, attended by 49 cardinals, 200 bishops and hundreds of laity and clergy from around the world, concluded a three week Synod on the "new evangelisation." During his homily, Pope Benedict said that the Church's "ordinary pastoral ministry . . . must be more animated by the fire of the Spirit, so as to inflame the hearts of the faithful who regularly take part in community worship and gather on the Lord's day to be nourished by his word and by the bread of eternal life."

He emphasised that the "sacramental journey is where we encounter the Lord's call to holiness," and that the faithful needed to be renewed in their appreciation of Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, and Confession as life-changing experiences of God's grace.

He also urged the Church "to evangelize, to proclaim the message of salvation to those who do not yet know Jesus Christ" reminding his hearers that there are still many parts of the world where people "await with lively expectation, sometimes without being fully aware of it, the first proclamation of the Gospel. So we must ask the Holy Spirit to arouse in the Church a new missionary dynamism . . ."

Pope Benedict spoke of "the baptized whose lives do not reflect the demands of Baptism . . . especially in the most secularized countries. The Church is particularly concerned that they should encounter Jesus Christ anew, rediscover the joy of faith and return to religious practice in the community of the faithful."

Pope Benedict concluded his homily: "Dear brothers and sisters, Bartimaeus, on regaining his sight from Jesus, joined the crowd of disciples, which must certainly have included others like him, who had been healed by the Master. New evangelizers are like that: people who have had the experience of being healed by God, through Jesus Christ. And characteristic of them all is a joyful heart that cries out with the Psalmist: “What marvels the Lord worked for us: indeed we were glad” (Psalm 125:3). Today, we too turn to the Lord Jesus, Redemptor hominis and lumen gentium, with joyful gratitude, making our own a prayer of Saint Clement of Alexandria: “until now I wandered in the hope of finding God, but since you enlighten me, O Lord, I find God through you and I receive the Father from you, I become your coheir, since you did not shrink from having me for your brother. Let us put away, then, let us put away all blindness to the truth, all ignorance: and removing the darkness that obscures our vision like fog before the eyes, let us contemplate the true God ...; since a light from heaven shone down upon us who were buried in darkness and imprisoned in the shadow of death, [a light] purer than the sun, sweeter than life on this earth” (Protrepticus, 113: 2 – 114:1). Amen."

Go HERE to the Vatican website for the full text of Pope Benedict's homily.




Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass 
at the end of the Synod of Bishops
REUTERS/Remo Casilli


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