Pope Benedict XVI invites members of the Synod to “think and act like Christ” during working sessions

Vatican City, Oct 2, 2005 / 22:00 pm

In an lengthy and profound commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians in today’s liturgy of hours, Pope Benedict XVI initiated Monday the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, inviting the 241 prelates to “think and act” like Jesus Christ in these days of work and reflection.

The Pontiff read from the reading of Saint Paul in his letter to the Corinthians: “ rejoice, change and encourage each other, and live in peace, and the God of Love and Peace will be with you,” and in the following he proposed five imperatives and one promise, that he developed in his reflection.

“One of the functions of collegiality, is helping us to know the gaps that we don’t see: it isn’t easy to see ones own flaws and the others see them better than we do,” the pope said, commentating the “need to change mutually.”

“Fraternal correction, helps to be more open, so that each one of us might find the truth, his integrity as an instrument of God. All of this require humility, to prevent the thought that one is superior to the others, but to help us mutually.”

The Holy Father said during his intervention “we can help each other in a great act of love, and true collegial affection. When a person is desperate , and doesn’t know how to go forth, he needs consolation, that someone might be with her, that encourages her, and fulfills the role of the comforting Holy Spirit.”

Faith reminded the pope, is “the common fundament upon which we work”, and in the words of Saint Paul, “ there is an invitation to remain always in these fundaments that precede us, to keep this common faith. Each one of us should live the faith according to its original characteristics, but always remembering that this faith precedes us.”

The Holy Father concluded encouraging the participants to the Synod to be “instruments of Christ” and  “to enter in the thoughts and in the feelings of the Lord.”

That is the meaning of the last warning of the Apostle”, the pope continued: “thinking with Christ’s thought”; he invited the prelates to “feel Christ’s thinking in the scripture, to learn to think like Christ, to reflect on Christ’s thinking and therefore to acquire Christ’s feelings, and being able to give to others Christ’s thinking and feelings.”

He finished with an optimistic tone: “ God precedes us. He already gave us everything. He gave us peace, forgiveness and love. He is with us. Only for the fact that he is with us, for that in baptism we received his grace, in the confirmation of the Holy Spirit, in the Sacrament of the Ordination we received his mission, we can know act, cooperate with his presence that precedes us. All of our action of which the five imperatives talk about, is a cooperation, a collaboration with the God of peace that is with us.”