“Ignoring the Scriptures is ignoring Christ,” said the Australian archbishop who presided this Monday, September 30, the feast of Saint Jerome, at the Mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, within the framework of the retreat prior to the Synod of Synodality. .
The Synod of Synodality is a process convened in the Catholic Church by Pope Francis that in October 2024 enters its second global phase with a new assembly in the Vatican, with the theme “For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission ”.
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Mons. Timothy John Costelloe, Archbishop of Perth (Australia) began his homily at the Vatican by highlighting the providential fact that the retreat begins on the day “when the Church remembers the life and testimony of Saint Jerome,” who translated the Bible from Greek to Latin, the famous Vulgate.
“Among the many things for which he is remembered – the prelate highlighted – perhaps his famous saying ‘Ignoring the Scriptures is ignoring Christ‘is the precious gift he offers us as we enter this thing that will be upon us for the next three or four weeks,’ until next October 27.
“We cannot be ignorant of Christ, we cannot forget Him, as we discern together what God is asking of the Church at this time,” the archbishop stressed. “In a sense we have an answer or at least a glimpse of an answer, given the certainty that Pope Francis offers us that God is calling us to be, together, a synodal Church on mission,” he added.
After highlighting the importance of working together in the Church, and that just as God created man and woman to form a community, so also “in God’s creative plan we have been created for each other, we depend on others.”
For this, Bishop Costelloe stressed, it is important to follow the example of Christ “and his infinite patience with us”, in order to be like Him among those “lost or confused or pushed to the margins”.
Then, he stressed, “it is important that we remember that the words that He said to his disciples at the Last Supper are words that he says to us: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life (…). If you want to know how to be a welcoming and hospitable Church, learn from me because I am the Way. If you want to know how to be a humble and poor Church, learn from me because I am the Way. If you want to know how to be a Church on mission, learn from me because I am the Way.”
For the latter as well, the Archbishop stressed, “we must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus” to overcome confusion and fear, remembering, as Pope Saint John XXIII said, that “the Church is Christ’s and not ours. It is to Him that we must look.”
After remembering the need to pray to the Holy Spirit to ask for unity and harmony in the Church, Bishop Costelloe made wishes that “Mary, the Mother of Christ, will accompany us with her prayers in the following days.”
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.