CONCLUSION

73. The sheer human complexity of the settings in which the Gospel must be proclaimed today brings spontaneously to mind the Gospel account of the multiplication of the loaves. The disciples are worried about the crowds who, hungering for Jesus' word, have followed him even into the desert. They bring their worries before Jesus and they tell him: ''Dimitte turbas... Send the crowd away...'' (Lk 9:12). Perhaps they were afraid, genuinely not knowing how to satisfy the hunger of so many people.

Our own hearts might be similarly troubled by the enormity of the problems confronting the Churches and ourselves personally as Bishops. In that case, we should respond with a new creativity in charity which is shown not only in more efficient forms of charitable assistance, but even more in an ability to be close to those in need and to make the poor feel that every Christian community is truly their home.²⁹⁴ 

Jesus, however, has his own way of solving our problems. As if to challenge the Apostles, he tells them: ''Why do you not give them something to eat yourselves?'' (Lk 9:13). We know how the story ended: ''All ate and were satisfied. And they took up what was left over, twelve baskets of broken pieces'' (Lk 9:17). That residual abundance is still present today in the life of the Church!

The Bishops of the third millennium are called to do what was done by so many saintly Bishops throughout history, up to our own time. Like Saint Basil, for example, who even built at the gates of Caesarea a large hospice for those in need, a true citadel of charity, which was called after him the Basiliad: this clearly demonstrates that ''the charity of works ensures an unmistakable efficacy to the charity of words''.²⁹⁵   This is the path that we too must walk: the Good Shepherd has entrusted his flock to each Bishop to feed it with his word and to form it by his example.

Where then will we Bishops get the ''bread'' needed to respond to the many requests which come to us from within and without the Churches and the Church? We could easily complain, as the Apostles did to Jesus: ''Where are we to get bread enough in the desert to feed so great a crowd?'' (Mt 15:33). Where can we find the resources we need? We can at least point to a few fundamental answers.

Our first, transcendent resource is the love of God poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (cf. Rom 5:5). The love with which God has loved us is so great that it can always sustain us in finding the right ways to touch the hearts of men and women today. At every moment the Lord gives us, by the power of his Spirit, an ability to love and to find the best and most beautiful ways to express that love. We are called to be servants of the Gospel for the hope of the world, yet we know that this hope does not come from us, but from the Holy Spirit, who ''does not cease to be the guardian of hope in the human heart: the hope of all human creatures, and especially of those who 'have the first fruits of the Spirit' and 'wait for the redemption of their bodies' ''.²⁹⁶ 

Our second resource is the Church, whose members we have become through Baptism, together with countless other brothers and sisters with whom we confess one heavenly Father and drink of the one Spirit of holiness.²⁹⁷   The present situation urges us to make the Church ''the home and the school of communion,'' if we truly wish to respond to the expectations of the world.²⁹⁸ 

Our communion in the body of Bishops, of which we became members by our consecration, is itself a remarkable resource, since it provides us with valuable support in our efforts to read carefully the sign of the times and to discern clearly what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. At the heart of the College of Bishops there is the support and the solidarity of the Successor of the Apostle Peter, whose supreme and universal power does not destroy but rather affirms, strengthens and vindicates the power of the Bishops, the successors of the Apostles. Here we will need to make the most of the means of building communion which are to be found in the great directives of the Second Vatican Council. Certainly there are circumstances – and today they are not rare – in which an individual Church or a number of neighbouring Churches find it difficult or practically impossible to provide an adequate response to major problems. It is above all in these cases that recourse to the means of building episcopal communion can provide genuine help.

A final, immediate recourse for a Bishop in search of ''bread'' to satisfy the hunger of his brothers and sisters is his own particular Church, when the spirituality of communion has taken root as an educative principle ''wherever individuals and Christians are formed, wherever ministers of the altar, consecrated persons and pastoral workers are trained, wherever families and communities are built up''.²⁹⁹   It is here that we see once more the connection between the Tenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops and the three General Assemblies which immediately preceded it. For a Bishop is never alone: he is not alone in the universal Church and he is not alone in his particular Church.

74. The duty of Bishops at the beginning of a new millennium is thus clearly marked out. It is the same duty as ever: to proclaim the Gospel of Christ, the salvation of the world. But it is a duty which has a new urgency and which calls for cooperation and commitment on the part of the whole People of God. The Bishop needs to be able to count on the members of his diocesan presbyterate and on his deacons, the ministers of the Blood of Christ and of charity; he needs to be able to count on his consecrated sisters and brothers, called to be for the Church and the world eloquent witnesses of the primacy of God in the Christian life and the power of his love amid the frailty of the human condition; and he needs to be able to count on the lay faithful, whose greater scope for the apostolate represents for their pastors a source of particular support and a reason for special comfort.

At the conclusion of these reflections, we apppreciate how the theme of the Tenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops leads each of us Bishops back to all our brothers and sisters in the Church and to all the men and women of the world. Christ sends us to them, even as he once he sent the Apostles (cf. Mt 28:19-20). We need to become, for each and every person, in an outstanding and visible way, a living sign of Jesus Christ, Teacher, Priest and Pastor.³⁰⁰ 

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate, Jesus Christ is the icon to which we look as we carry out our ministry as heralds of hope. Like him, we must be ready to offer our own lives for the salvation of those entrusted to our care, as we proclaim and celebrate the triumph of God's merciful love over sin and death.

Let us implore for this great undertaking the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church and Queen of the Apostles. May she, who in the Upper Room supported the prayers of the Apostolic College, obtain for us the grace never to fail in the task of love which Christ has entrusted to us. As a witness to true life, Mary ''shines forth for the pilgrim people of God'' – and in a particular way for us, their pastors – ''as a sign of sure hope and comfort, until the day of the Lord arrives''.³⁰¹ 

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 16 October 2003, the twenty-fifth anniversary of my election to the Pontificate.

JOHN PAUL II