Vatican City, Oct 6, 2008 / 12:36 pm
Archbishop of Quebec Cardinal Mark Ouellet on Monday addressed the General Congregation of the Twelfth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, describing its pastoral and missionary goals. The cardinal discussed factors affecting the faith and missionary impulses of Christians, saying the Church must better present divine revelation as a dialogue between God and man to help bring people to a "vivid encounter" with God.
Cardinal Ouellet's remarks expanded upon the synod theme, "The Word of God in the life and mission of the Church."
"The goal of the Synod is primarily a pastoral and missionary one," his introductory marks read. "It consists in, together, listening to the Word of God to discern how the Spirit and the Church aspire to respond to the gift of the Word made flesh through the love of the Holy Scriptures and the proclamation of the Kingdom of God to all humanity."
The missionary impulse of Christianity, the cardinal explained, has been affected by factors such as secularization, religious pluralism, globalization and the enormous expansion in the communication media. These factors have resulted in a growing gap between rich and poor, the blossoming of "esoteric sects," threats to peace, and "current assaults against human life and family."
He said to engage with these cultures, the synod should reinforce "the encounter with the Word of God as the source of life."
Revelation is God's Dialogue
According to Cardinal Ouellet, the Church renewed its consciousness of its own mystery and mission through the Trinitarian and Christ-centered vision of the Second Vatican Council.
In particular, he referenced the Vatican II document Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation.
The cardinal said that in Dei Verbum the Council Fathers taught of the dynamic aspects of Revelation, emphasizing it as the personal, self-communicating dialogue of God.
"Thus they laid the bases for a more vivid encounter and dialogue between God Who calls and His people who respond," he remarked.
However, this view has not yet come to fruition in the Church's conscience, prayer, and pastoral practices as well as the Church's "theological and exegetical method."
Cardinal Ouellet said the synod should ask why Dei Verbum has been insufficiently received and should propose "concrete solutions" to remedy ignorance of the Scriptures.
"We must start from the Mystery of a God that speaks", Cardinal Ouellet explained, "a God Who is Himself the Word and gives Himself to be known by humanity in many ways.
"Thanks to the Bible, humanity knows it has been called upon by God; the Spirit helps it to listen and welcome the Word of God, thus becoming the 'Ecclesia' [Church], the community assembled by the Word. This community of faithful receives its identity and its mission from the Word of God that founds it, nourishes it and engages it to the service of the Kingdom of God."
The Word of God reveals God in different aspects: "It shows God Himself Who speaks, His Divine Word, His creative and saving Word, and finally His Word made flesh in Jesus Christ, 'the mediator and the fullness of all revelation'."
"The written or transmitted Word of God is a word of dialogue and also a Trinitarian word, offered to man in Jesus Christ to introduce him to Trinitarian communion and to find his full identity. ... God speaks and, because of this, man appears as one-who-has-been-called," the cardinal continued.
This human dimension of revelation is important because of its role in Biblical interpretation and because of Vatican II's focus upon the "dialogic identity" of man, his existence in conversation with God, beginning from the "Word of God in Christ."