|
2. New horizons for
affirming identities and strengthening relations in communion
2.1. The Church of communion: mutual relations and exchange of gifts
The ecclesiology of communion is opening up to us a new view of our
identities and relationships. We see how no form of life and ministry in the
Church is self-sufficient, how no form can be defined only in relation to
itself. An intrinsic part of the definition of each form of life and ministry
is its correlation to the other forms of Christian life and ministry. It is the
Spirit who grants each one his or her gift, and all the gifts are for the
building up of the Body of Christ (Eph 4: 4-11) 19. It is the Bishop’s
task to actively promote the consecrated life in its various forms; to care for
their fidelity to the Gospel and charism, to entrust and confirm them in the
apostolic mission; to accept, correct, guide and co-ordinate pastoral activity;
to respect and defend the institutes’ just autonomy of life and
government20.
The
Synod on the ministry of Bishops is, first of all, a Synod that focuses our
attention on the global reality of the whole Church and of the particular
Churches, of which they are – by sacramental grace and charism – the Pastors,
Teachers and Priests. Their vocation is expressed first and foremost as a
“ministry” or “service” to the Christian community, the Body of Christ, the
Spouse of the Lord, Temple of the Spirit. The Instrumentum Laboris presents the Bishops not only as Pastors of
the particular Churches, but also as having collegial responsibility for the
whole Church.
Furthermore, the episcopal ordained ministry is one and indivisible, as
St. Cyprian said21. In the same way that the same ministry appears and
emerges in all the Bishops, so too the Church is one and in each particular
Church the same mystery emerges and is expressed.
This is the stamp of the correlation between the various forms of
Christian life and the diverse forms of ministries and services. The unity of
the Church and the unity of the ordained ministry require communion and an
exchange of gifts. The Spirit is Communion. No one can, and no one should,
claim as his own a gift given in common; no one can or should claim a monopoly
on a reality that, although it is in him and is acting in him, is shared by
many other persons at this tie and in the past. Although the mystery of the
Church is one, all the particular Churches that express it could not do so
unless they were in communion with the others that express it too.
The ecclesiology of communion calls for a great emphasis of the
reciprocal relations and exchange of gifts. The Trinitarian logic of the
affirmation of the other rather than one’s own self-affirmation is what will
truly make the Church appear in the world as an “Ecclesia Trinitatis.”
In the exchange of gifts the protagonist is the
Spirit, who is the one who raises them up and gives them mutuality for the
common good. In it we also find Mary, image of the Church and Mother of all the
vocations in it. Mary continues to give the Church a Pentecost experience of
the Spirit. The same Spirit who came upon her to make her the mother of the
Word descended upon her to place her at the centre of fraternal communion. The
Spirit causes the Church to be reborn in Mary and around the figure of Mary the
community of believers is unified. We cannot overlook Mary’s motherly influence
in our relations within the Church.
|