Close Of The Synod

Here's the Pope's homily for the close of the Eucharistic Synod. During the mass, he canonized five saints --and he also pointedly greeted the Chinese bishops who weren't permitted to attend. He closes thus

The ecclesial community, when celebrating the Eucharist, especially on the Lord's Day, is always more conscious that the sacrifice of Christ is "for many" (Matthew 26:28) and the Eucharist urges the Christian to be the "broken bread" for others, to commit oneself for a more just and more brotherly world. Even today, faced with the crowds, Christ continues to exhort his disciples: "Give them something to eat yourselves" (Matthew 14:16) and, in his name, the missionaries proclaim and witness the Gospel, at times even to the sacrifice of life.

Dear friends, we must start again from the Eucharist. May Mary help us, a Eucharistic woman, to be in love with it, help us to "remain" in the love of Christ, to be intimately renewed by him. Docile to the action of the Spirit and attentive to man's needs, the Church then will be a greater beacon of light, of true joy and hope, achieving fully her mission as the "sign and instrument of the unity of the whole human race" ("Lumen Gentium," No. 1).

The Synod closed with a vote on some 30 propositions (all of which passed). I was going to wait to mention this until I could find them in English, but it's taking too long. Here are some of them. And here are all of them --in Italian. See also the bishops' closing message to their brother bishops and all the faithful.

I was going to mention --and this seems the place for it-- that there was a Nigerian baby baptized at our parish on Sunday. Baptism being baptism, ordinarily the ethnicity of the child would be unremarkable, except that we witnessed something startling during the opening rite. Following the Nigerian custom, as our pastor processed in for the start of Mass, he carried the baby into the sanctuary with him and laid her on the altar as he genuflected and performed the rest of the opening ablutions.

I can't convey how shocking it was to see a living being on the altar --all of a sudden, a vision of Isaac, the reality of the altar's purpose--and the enormity of Christ's sacrifice for us struck me very powerfully. If death focuses the mind, let's just say I had no difficulty entering into the full meaning of the liturgy this particular Sunday. And that seems like an apt experience to have as we close out the year of the Eucharist.