19 Feb EUROPEAN CONTINENTAL SYNODAL ASSEMBLY. PRAGUE
Days of diversity and welcoming with respect!… how many children God has!, and all invited to his “tent” of encounter, communion, participation for the mission. Yes, this is the goal not to forget, and again in the words of St. Rafaela Mª, “may everyone know and love Him”… In my heart after this ecclesial experience that the Lord has given me, I feel grateful and sent. Much remains to be done and the tent to which we are called to extend has many challenges, and more so if after that “listening” one feels that many of the walls that do not allow us to unfold as “Church going forth” start from the fears and defenses that precede us to the frank dialogue and search for God’s will for our today.
We repeated many times in the prayer of each day, help us to extend the tent! open us to personal and community conversion, give us the gift of synodality, which impels us to walk together, in unity that is not incompatible with “diversity”, Europe is rich in many nuances, Europe is rooted in the God who always remains, and transcends secularization and its own “absence” from our lives in daily practice…
Sharing in a multi-European group, -Italian, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Polish …- left me many questions, and desire to know, to understand that saying of “get in the shoes of the other, and then “speak”… And it accompanies me especially in these days of doing “rereading” and staying “with the best”… to serve and love better.
I was part of the Spanish Delegation, as a representative of the Consecrated Life of the pilgrim Church in Spain, and as a member of the E. Synodal of the EEC, that these months we have encouraged the reception of the Continental Document, and stimulated in our possibilities all the diocesan referents. Which at the same time gave me the opportunity to “know” many of the diocesan realities, with their joys and difficulties, in this synodal journey, to which Pope Francis summoned us in October ’21, to the whole Church to the “surprise” of many – as they said – and to perceive the ever deeper need for the complementarity of all vocations, to reappropriate our baptismal dignity, -what an important intuition that of Saint Rafaela when she said that the most important day of her life was the day of her baptism- by the water of baptism we are configured children and children, brothers and sisters; the sap that pushes us to co-responsibility, and unites us, in the conviction that we are all, men or women, necessary for the extension of the Kingdom, in the various ministries. Without leaving behind a special resonance in the search and discernment without fear in the role of women in ecclesial life, many dioceses agreed on this request and that has since also been ratified in Prague. Along with the need to work in family ministry, and the great challenge of how to connect with young people and with them continue to build the church of the third millennium, where they are already “present” alive.
Prague was also a voice of the commitment to work for peace, for the weakest, for the common home, … because a Europe with the flavor of the Gospel cannot be indifferent. The presence and communication of the delegations of Ukraine or Russia, impressed me, as well as the various representatives of the Eastern Churches, a world very unknown to me, which opened my eyes, like the blind, although at first, I only saw “blurred images”… but yes, to perceive the need we have to work for a more committed ecumenical and interconfessional dialogue, for the unity of all Christians in the “tent” of welcome and inclusion, to walk together and begin a new Pentecost. How many challenges, but also much Spirit poured out, the atmosphere of prayer, and discernment… He led us and impelled us to affect us and to hope that his promises would be repeated, in this beloved and painful Europe, called to be “mother and apostle”. And to ask for the grace to “love it in the richness of its diversity… and to enter into the dynamic of communion, participation and mission that constitutes its raison d’être”. (Conclusive doc. Prague February.2023).Before you Holy Spirit…!
MªJosé Tuñón, aci
