Daejeon diocesan Synod opens: "Working together to improve ourselves and the Church"
Daejeon (AsiaNews) - A diocesan synod "to put God and not money at the center of our lives, to improve the relationship between us and to stimulate the Korean Church to reflect on itself". This is the spirit that animates the Diocese of Daejeon, where the bishop announced the synodal meeting on 8 December 2015. In a letter sent to all the faithful, which we publish below, Msgr. Lazzaro You Heung-sik asks the people to "renew the call to pastors and people of God, to walk towards Christ in harmony and honestly confront our problems."
Dear brothers and sisters, religious, priests of my diocese,
Today is the first day of the Jubilee of Mercy that Pope Francis proclaimed and which runs until 20 November 2016. On this day I would like to also announce the Synod of our diocese, so that it can be reborn in the Holy Spirit.
The significance of the Synod comes from two words, syn and hodos, that "taking to the streets together". This sense makes us think of 'synodality'. The Synod enables us to see and feel the invisible koinonia of the Church, and helps us to realize this koinonia in our current life. Therefore, the Synod is a path for us, which we can walk to unite ourselves in Christ.
Through the Synod walking together in Christ, we observe our difficulties in the faith and in the Church, we develop the problems we have encountered in our Christian life. The Synod helps us so that our life may be closer to Christ. We also need to convince ourselves that the Holy Spirit is always with us, and unites us through our Synod.
As in the Concilium, it is the Holy Spirit who will prepare the Synod and help it advance so that it can bear fruit. I have often thought of the difficulties that will encounter in the course of the Synod work: the many jobs to do, the relationships that are likely to worsen because of the Synod, the anxieties that this event brings ...
But over a period of prayer I came to understand that we have to have this Synod, this path which we walk together. When I prepared for the Asian Youth Day, last year, I did not think of inviting Pope Francis.
But over time the hope of having the Pope with us was born and grew. Then this hope became a desire, and this desire made the Pope’s participation possible. Without the prayers of our martyrs, your prayers and your efforts it would have been impossible to celebrate the Day with the Pope.
Thus have we not already met God, who brought us to pray to the Holy Spirit for others during the preparation and helped us to do good for others? Here, and now I am persuaded that our Synod will be like our Youth Day.
In prayer, I also look at our current situation: "Here and now." We live with a false faith , relying on science and the economy the only means that can solve all of humanities problems: climate, youth unemployment, the gap between rich and poor, our morals. ..
Today money, with which you can buy new techniques, governs us: governs our thoughts, our words, our actions, our economy, our military interventions, our diplomacy etc. Money has become a great power. And we see the decline of vocations for priests and religious.
We should actualize the words and deeds that Francis showed us. We should live the Jubilee Year of Mercy and actualize the spirit of 'Laudato sì’ in our lives. We should realize our love and sharing with others by means of reconciliation and forgiveness in our situation, in which Korea is still divided.
Because of these situations and these current problems, I strongly feel the Holy Spirit that we have to do the Synod in our diocese. How can we understand the relationship between science and faith, how can we actualize the mission for our young people, in the desecration of society how can we find faith, solve problems and threats to our families, how can the Church meet other religions coming now into our culture, how can we live with different cultures, how can we bring back to life the spirit of the martyrs ...
The Synod is the path on which the people of God, the Church walks. The faithful, religious and priests must listen to each other. If there is someone who has suffered a wound in the heart because of my thought and my action, I have to ask his or her forgiveness, because our Lord Jesus is with him. The Synod open our ears as a spiritual path that makes us share our hearts, a way in which we can feel the joy of the gospel.
There will certainly be many difficulties in our Synod journey, however, if we are all united together, we can walk down this road. We believe that the Holy Spirit is with us and leads us on this mysterious path, and we begin to pray for our Synod. It's all possible in the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Let us walk together! If we are together, we will feel joy and peace throughout the Synod. Our 'changed' figure become like a scent in our Church and outside the Church. We pray and we walk! Without fear, we gather our hearts and we go together. We begin to prepare our Synod, which is a journey that we will make together. Thank you.
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12/02/2016 15:14
