16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops
Mass in the rite of the Syriac Maronite Church of Antioch
Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican
Homily of His Excellency Bishop Paul Rouhana, O.L.M., designated member of the Synod of Bishops (October 2024)
Maronite patriarchal vicar, Sarba region, Lebanon
Wednesday 9 October 2024, 16.00
Dear participants in the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops!
1- I am deeply moved to find myself with all of you at this Synodal Assembly, among brothers and sisters in Christ, who have come from the five continents of the world to gather here in Rome, under the vigilance (episkopé) of its bishop, Pope Francis, whose Church, the Church of Rome, founded by the apostolate and martyrdom of Peter and Paul, “presides in charity”, according to the beautiful expression of Ignatius of Antioch, who was one of the first bishops of this apostolic see, of Greek and Aramaic culture. As a result of the vicissitudes of history, there are now five branches of this see: the Greek Orthodox, the Greek Melkite Catholics, the Syriac Orthodox, the Syriac Catholics and the Maronites. It is worth remembering in passing that “in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians” (cf. Acts 11:26). This new name designates our unity in Jesus Christ, in the diversity of our charisms, because we have been baptized into Him. Having vested ourselves in Christ in our baptism, according to the apostle Paul, we are called to free ourselves from the separating discriminations that we have erected among ourselves in the course of history, like obstacles that wound our unity in Christ and obscure our original vocation as men and women created equal in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gal 3:27; Gen 1:26-27).
2- At the beginning of this homily, allow me to evoke an ecclesial and personal memory, that dates back to 9 October 1977. Recalling this memory can have a spiritual impact on our ongoing synodal journey. On that day, Pope Paul VI (the future saint) celebrated in this Basilica the canonization of Saint Charbel Makhlouf, a Lebanese hermit monk (1828-1898) from the Lebanese Maronite Order, after having beatified him in Rome on 5 December 1965 at the end of the Second Vatican Council. As a young 23-year-old professed member of the aforementioned Order at the time, I had the incredible opportunity to take part as a musician in the canonisation of this hermit monk, whose reputation for holiness spread far beyond the borders of our country, where the faithful were quick to call him the “patron saint of Lebanon”. With the same emotion and fervour, our Church is preparing for the celebration by Pope Francis, on Sunday 20 October, of the Mass for the canonization of eleven martyrs for the faith known as the “Martyrs of Damascus” in 1860: eight Franciscan religious and three lay Maronites, the Massabki brothers. Faced with the atrocity of the war that has been raging since 7 October 2023 in the Holy Land, with further outbreaks in Lebanon and other countries in the region, for reasons we all know, nothing could be more poignant than to read an extract from the letter that Pope Francis sent to the Catholics of the Middle East on 7 October: “A year ago, the fuse of hatred was lit; it did not sputter, but exploded in a spiral of violence, in the shameful inability of the international community and the most powerful countries to silence the weapons and put an end to the tragedy of war. Blood is still being shed, as are tears. Anger is growing, along with the desire for revenge, while it seems that few people care about what is most needed and what is most desired: dialogue and peace. I never tire of repeating that war is a defeat, that weapons do not build the future but destroy it, that violence never brings peace. History proves this, yet years and years of conflict seem to have taught us nothing”.
3- Bearing in mind the state of war and violence in several parts of the world, signifying the failure and breakdown of dialogue and leading to a monstrous rejection of all societal coexistence, what prophetic message can the saints give us in times of crisis? How can we learn from their example as authentic messengers of God, the true meaning of peace, which is, according to Pope Benedict XVI, “the state of those who live in harmony with God and with themselves, with others and with nature. Before appearing outwardly, peace is interior” (cf. Benedict XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Church in the Middle East Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, § 9)?
The contemplatives in synergy with the Word of God
4- The saints, whether in the apostolic or contemplative life, like Saint Charbel, are first and foremost our teachers in listening to the Word of God, which is the foundation of our synodal journey. They are our teachers in taking the time to “ruminate” on this word, to savour it, following the example of Mary, Martha’s sister, who sat at the Lord's feet to listen to his word, seeking, like her, the best part that will not be taken away from them (cf. Lk 10, 38-42). These men of God teach us to allow ourselves to be seduced by Him, like the prophet Jeremiah, who exclaims: “O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and thou hast prevailed” (Jer 20:7).
5- Following their example, we trust in the Word of God, compared to the grain in the Gospel parable of the sower; a word that patiently seeks, respecting the rhythm and cultural soil of each person, to sow this soil or human substrate, individually and collectively, with the intention of making us collaborators with God in spreading the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ (Cf. Mt 13, 1-9; 18-23; Mk 4, 1-9; 13-20; Lk 8, 4-8; 11-15). In a way, this collaboration is the foundation of the synodal journey, both vertically and horizontally, with God and with our neighbours.
6- Collaboration also means synergy between the divine grace contained in the divine Word and our human will, to the point where the disciple-missionary of Jesus will hold this Word, like a musician, as a ‘tuning fork’ to which he will tune his thoughts and conduct, indeed his whole being (cf. Ps 1:2). Thanks to this synergy, the Christian can hope to gradually overcome the existential and painful dilemma, as mentioned by Paul, between will and power (cf. Rom 7:19), so that we will be able to do the good we want or desire and avoid the evil we do not want. It is in this sense that the Christian message, in the view of Pope Benedict XVI, ceases to be merely ‘informative’ and also becomes ‘performative’, ‘in the sense that it is not merely knowledge, but knowledge that changes life’. (Benedict XVI, Spe salvi, § 2).
It is beautiful to see the fruits of this creative and fruitful synergy, as witnessed by the ancient Syriac-Antiochian Maronite prayer that the celebrant recites after the breaking of the Eucharistic bread, saying: “Lord, you have united your divinity to our humanity and our humanity to your divinity; your life to our death and our death to your life. You have assumed what is ours by offering us what is yours, to give us life and save us. Glory. Be to you forever”. For all these reasons, it is important to remember throughout our synodal journey that the future of our Churches and our respective countries, especially in times of crisis, must not depend solely on geostrategic and geopolitical calculations and analyses. The Church, as the family of Jesus, is above all the community of “those who hear the Word of God and do it”. (cf. Lk 8:21)
Nourished by the Word of God to love God and neighbour
7- Nourished by the Word of God in the school of the saints, Christians on the synodal journey will also never tire of remembering the revolutionary teaching of Jesus, according to which love of God and love of neighbour are inseparable, and constantly challenge each other, being two facets of a single commandment (cf. Lk 10:25-28). In the light of this teaching, brilliantly explained in the Lucan parable of the Good Samaritan, a Christian does not ask himself the question “Who is my neighbour?” for fear of choosing him according to his own interests. Instead, he finds himself in Jesus' question to the lawyer, which I freely formulate in this way: “Am I able to be a neighbour to every victim I meet by chance, regardless of where he comes from, and care for him until he is well again?” (cf. Lk 10:29-37). In the eyes of Jesus, being the neighbour of every victim enables us to share in God's mercy: “Be merciful as your Father is merciful” (cf. Lk 6:36). We become capable of doing this precisely by virtue of the divine-human synergy, which makes our hearts expand beyond their usual limits in order to be witnesses and instruments of God's mercy in times of crisis. The parable of the Good Samaritan will remain our compass for bearing witness to a synodality of solidarity with those left behind, victims of injustice, poverty and insecurity; our motto being that of Pope Benedict XVI in his first encyclical letter, Deus caritas est: “’A heart which sees’. This heart sees where love is needed and acts accordingly”.1 Buoyed by this love, we will better understand the meaning of the teaching of Saint Vincent de Paul: “Leaving prayer to go to the bedside of a sick person is ‘leaving God for God’”.
8- Pilgrims of “hope that does not disappoint” (cf. Rom 5:5), let us pray to the Risen Lord, present in his Church, as he promised us (cf. Mt 28:20), that we may continue under his gaze, today and throughout the Jubilee Year 2025, our synodal journey of missionary discipleship in times of crisis, through the intercession of his mother and our mother, Mary Most Holy, and the saints and martyrs of all times. Following in their footsteps, we dare to say: “Christ is risen! Truly risen!” Amen.
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1 In his commentary on the parable of the Good Samaritan, Pope Benedict XVI leaves us these shining words: “We contribute to a better world only by personally doing good now, with full commitment and wherever we have the opportunity, independently of partisan strategies and programmes. The Christian's programme —the programme of the Good Samaritan, the programme of Jesus—is ‘a heart which sees’. This heart sees where love is needed and acts accordingly.” (Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus caritas est, § 31b)
