Cardinal Aguiar Retes: trust in divine help to face criticism of synodal life

Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, Delegate President of the Synod of Synodality, urged at the Synod Mass celebrated this afternoon in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to trust in “divine help” to face with hope the criticism of “synodal life.” ”.

Citing Saint Paul at the beginning of his homily, the Primate Archbishop of Mexico recalled that “the selfish disorder of man is the cause of bad actions.”

“How to overcome this tendency?” he asked the members of the Synod. “Learning to let ourselves be led by the Holy Spirit,” the cardinal explained next.

Furthermore, he indicated that the way to achieve this is to “know Jesus Christ, and assume, as a good disciple, his testimony of life and his teachings.”

In this sense, he indicated that in this way the fruits of the Holy Spirit can be obtained, among which he listed “love, joy, peace, generosity, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control.” ”.

“On that path we will obtain, as Jesus expresses it in the Gospel, the freedom to intervene and correct those who are deviated, disoriented, or pretentious, who hold themselves out as models for others, or who demand burdens that they do not fulfill,” he highlighted.

Likewise, he specified that it is timely to “strengthen our confidence in divine help to face with hope the different presences and behaviors that, both within the Church and outside it, criticize and hinder the application of synodal life in our ecclesial communities.”

He also invited the participants in the Synod to ask themselves “how much we are committed to living and promoting synodality in our own areas of ecclesial and social responsibility.”

He affirmed that expectations could be “conditioned by the social and ecclesial contexts themselves,” while inviting us to remember “in our usual prayer, that we will certainly not lack the assistance of the Holy Spirit to promote our specific tasks, in the synodal path and practice.” .

“Let us act coherently, and we will obtain the fruits of the Holy Spirit, perceiving through our compliance, divine intervention, which will frequently surprise us, by achieving much more than we humanly expected,” he indicated.

For the Primate Archbishop of Mexico, in this way it will also be possible to obtain “the spiritual freedom to intervene through fraternal, supportive and sincere correction to our neighbors in need of help.”

“In this way we will develop as people trusting in the Lord Jesus, who know how to avoid being guided by worldly criteria,” he added.