27th Sunday Year A - Homily 5

Homily 5 -2023

You might have noticed listed in the weekend’s Parish Bulletin the Pope’s Prayer Intention for this month of October? He asked us to join him in praying for “… the Church, that she may adopt listening and dialogue as a lifestyle at every level, and allow herself to be guided by the Holy Spirit towards the peripheries of the world.” Pope Francis sees the Church as much more inclusive than the Western World with its interests and concerns which so much of the media that we are exposed to seem to assume.

Last week, the first week of October, was a busy week in Rome. It was prefaced with the Consistory for a new group of Cardinals from the four points of the compass. And then, on the Feast of St Francis last week, the Pope released his anticipated document on the Environment, Laudate Deum, his urgent follow-up to his earlier Encyclical, Laudato Si, on the same subject. Also on that same day, the Feast of St Francis, the long-awaited and prepared-for World Synod of Bishops to examine and practise what he called “Synodology” began and will continue over the rest of the month.

Regular Synods of Bishops began after the Second Vatican Council to ensure the proper and on-going development of Tradition following on the insights that arose at the Council. This one is the eleventh since the Council finished nearly sixty years ago, and hopes to continue that same Tradition. It will be unique, not only in the issues it will consider, but how they were determined, and how they will be dealt with.

The agenda is the fruit of many smaller gatherings of bishops, priests and lay people that have been gathering all over the world during the past couple of years to listen carefully to each other and equally carefully to share their concerns and insights, deliberately and explicitly seeking all the time to listen for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Here in Australia, we were fortunate to have had our Plenary Council a couple of years ago. It was a very fruitful opportunity for all Catholics, firstly, and then our representatives, to hesitantly put the process into practice as we and they met to discuss the issues that seemed important to us in the Australian Church at this time and within the wider context of our world; and to have these concerns sent to Rome to be included in the agenda of the Synod.

The input of lay people in the lead-up process and in the membership of the Synod is a quite special fruit of the ever-developing vital Tradition of the Church from the earliest times.

The Pope is particularly insistent that all round the world we ordinary [but always precious] members of the Church pray that the participants listen for and become ever more adept to discern the leading of God’s Holy Spirit. Some of you may consider coming occasionally to week-day Mass over the next three weeks to pray.

The Pope’s new document on the Climate Crisis has been triggered by a number of factors that have become obvious over the past seven years since he addressed the original Encyclical, Laudato Si. Drawing on the research of the by-far greater number of scientists, and stimulated and motivated by the increasingly frequent and destructive observation, [and even experience by the mostly poor], of almost unbelievable climate extremes and their consequences, he calls everyone, and particularly national leaders, out of their state of climate-denial to determined, realistic and adequate cooperation in the urgent, but different, steps that everyone needs take.

Let me quote just one paragraph as written by Francis: I feel obliged to make these clarifications, which may appear obvious, because of certain dismissive and scarcely reasonable opinions that I encounter, even within the Catholic Church. Yet we can no longer doubt…[#14].

Nearly three hundred years ago, Jonathan Swift wrote: There are none so blind as those who will not see…