Introduction: Paula Hillery
Good morning and welcome to PAX. Today we celebrate the fourth – and last – Sunday of Advent. This year we have been focused on the Synod that Pope Francis announced in October. The word “Synod” refers to a journey. It comes from two Greek words, “syn” (with) and “hodos” (road). It means a “traveling together on the same road.” Although Advent is ending soon, we are nowhere near the conclusion of the Synod – discussions are just starting to take place and the conversations will go on well into the new year.
In the first two weeks of Advent, we focused on listening, especially to those who are on the fringes. Last week we shifted toward a pregnant hope as we move forward. And today we chose Journeying in Hope as our theme, to reflect the journey that we will continue into the future.
Where will we go from here? We look forward to the birth of a new child, and maybe even the birth of a new Church. As the song said many years ago, “we’ve only just begun.”
1st Reading: Micah 5:1-4
2nd Reading: Hebrews 10: 5-10
Gospel: Luke 1: 39-45
Homily: Marie Dennis
“Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by our God would be fulfilled.” (Luke 1)
This fourth Sunday of Advent leans in on a Promise: Mary – receiving, accepting, enfleshing a word, the Word that, as Micah says, “will be Peace.” Mary, courageous and (for good reason) fearful, journeying nevertheless into hope. This beginning of her public story is about power (God will pull down the mighty from their throne and lift up the lowly; send the rich empty away and fill the hungry with good things …). It is also about promise and hope — such a fitting story for these days, this season, for this time in the long life of our Church.
I imagine that many of you joined NETWORK this week – as I did – to begin the celebration of their 50th anniversary. Those were such fruitful years right after Vatican II – when Pax was founded, and NETWORK, the Center of Concern, Pax Christi USA, hundreds of justice and peace offices in religious communities and dioceses around the world. We knew that we were Church, the people of God, – that by the Gospel, we were called to work for justice, to participate in the transformation of the world — to build community. And we did. Then we held on – literally through thick and very thin as the institutional Church backtracked from Vatican II, closed many windows that the Council had opened, continued to exclude by gender and sexual orientation, continued to foster power-over relationships, and on and on.
Right before Pope Francis was elected in 2013, I was in Rome to lead a Pax Christi International retreat for religious communities. I remember looking at the Vatican from the roof of the convent where we were meeting and thinking how angry and frustrated I was by the institution. But the People of God – you, the Pax Community and other People of God like you – held on. Thanks be to God.
This past week, I have been thinking especially about the complexity of the journey – the highs and lows, the times I almost walked away, the times more recently when glimmers of hope began to seep back into my view of the institution – thanks most often to the servant leader we call pope who stands on a world stage with such authenticity and vision and who is beginning to midwife the birth a New Church.
I say that especially because I was in Rome all week for the first time in two years. And in spite of my well-worn cynicism, I saw incredible signs of hope – signs that a new Church could actually be born! Off the top of my head, I can name five really hopeful signs of the times in the Catholic Church. That in itself is a small miracle!
You all saw the first sign of hope in the last few days: the unprecedented apology from a Vatican official to the LGBTQ community and New Ways Ministry and Pope Francis’ letters to New Ways Ministry calling Jeanine Gramick a “valiant woman.” So long overdue, so well deserved!
The second sign is about women in the Church – a long, long struggle that is clearly not over. But I had a great opportunity this week to meet three powerful women who are in top positions in the institution:
- Nathalie Becquart, who is Under-Secretary of the Synod of Bishops and responsible for the Synod on Synodality. She is the first woman to have a vote in the synod of bishops.
- Alessandra Smerilli, interim Secretary of the Dicastery for IHD, which is responsible for everything from the Luadato Si Action Platform to the Vatican’s COVID19 Commission; from the migration of peoples to nuclear disarmament.
- Francesca Di Giovanni, Under-Secretary, Multilateral Affairs, Section for Relations with States, Secretariat of State, responsible for the Holy See diplomacy and participation in major multilateral engagements, for example, at the UN.
These woman are not window dressing. They are in some of the most powerful and interesting positions in the curia, which itself is being reformed by Pope Francis – radically, we hope. I expect the leadership of these women will make a significant difference.
The third sign of hope is the process itself aimed at implementation of Laudato Si. For the past two years we have been immersed in this process, building the Laudato Si Action Platform that is both creative and unique – and the first time in centuries that the Church has so fully opened up to grassroots organizations and the ideas of the “people of God”! The Vatican’s COVID19 Commission invited similar community-wide engagement.
The fourth sign of hope is a definitive shift in Catholic social teaching that is deep, interesting, and challenging, Church teaching on the death penalty, the “very possession” of nuclear weapons, and the just war tradition are all in a different place than they were a few years ago, thanks to Pope Francis. Last week in Rome we repeatedly experienced open and positive responses to the proposal of Pax Christi’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative that the Church recommit to the centrality of Gospel nonviolence and that Pope Francis write an encyclical on nonviolence.
That seemed to be true whether we had known and worked with a person for many years or we were introducing them to our work for the first time. On several occasions we observed a real transformation in someone’s thinking, an “aha” moment. Sister Nathalie in the Synod of Bishops office was a great example. She said she never realized how important nonviolence is to the synod process itself. No one dismissed nonviolence as too idealistic or radical.
And finally, the Synod on Synodality. To meet with Sister Nathalie was a gift. I had not realized before how the Synod on Synodality was about the transformation of the institutional Church and our relationships with each other. Nathalie talked about the synod process as a renewal of the Church, especially of internal relationships, building on Vatican II. She said that the main focus would be on reconciliation and urged us to develop our thinking about synodality as an expression of nonviolence. She also asked us to participate in the synod process as much as possible through the local church – parishes, dioceses, etc. but also to send material directly to the Synod office as the Pax Christi International network, which we will do. I hope the Pax Community will do the same – perhaps in cooperation with other Eucharistic Communities in the US and beyond.
A final thought: we had the gift of staying at Domus Santa Marta where Pope Francis lives. We saw him in the lobby a number of times and at the evening meal on several occasions. He simply comes into the dining room, gets his salad, and sits down with his cronies. Simple. Beautiful. A prophet who smells like the sheep!
We have a Promise and are waiting for it to be fulfilled. Maybe a new Church birthing is a step in the right direction!