VATICAN SYNOD: A Synod Calls On the Church To Discern How to Welcome the Poor

Fr. Andrew Kaufa smm

Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini OSB invited the 16^th General Assembly of Bishops Synod to emulate the welcoming heart of Jesus Christ even to the children and the poor.

She said this during her pre-Mass reflection on the second day of the Synod participants retreat, Monday, October 2, 2023, as she reflected on Mathew 25:28-22.

“Welcoming God’s elect, and God who sends, in the child (Mt 25:31-46), this will be the roadmap to Jerusalem, and to the final judgment,” Mother Angelini said and asked, “How can one discern and welcome the small, the poor, in today’s church?”

For Mother Angelini, the Church today is in a world where humanity is characterized by confusion and uncertainty. In such an environment, the Church must take a path of conversion to welcome the prophecy of the little ones, the unpredictable, ready also to journey the path of Jerusalem, the way of the Cross.

Connecting this to the 16^th Ordinary General Assembly of the Bishops, Mother Angelini argues that “There is a profound link between how the Christian community relates to the irrelevant, the poor, the invisible and the acceptance of God’s plan, and this must inform the entire synod process.

This turning point, says Mother Angelini, created tension not only with the Jewish leaders but also between Jesus and his own disciples as he descended from the mount of Transfiguration.

In such a tension, Mother Angelini calls on the synod participants not to allow confusion and fragmentation to reign in their hearts. Rather, they must enter into the synodal assembly with a sense of the openness of a child and the freedom of Jesus to make the resolution to go in the direction of Jerusalem.

“Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men.” (Lk 9:44),” she said and added, “to see the profound link between how the Christian community relates to the irrelevant, the poor, the invisible and the acceptance of God’s plan.”

On Jesus freely journeying towards Jerusalem where he was to be crucified, Mother Angelini highlights Jesus’ free choice and says, “This vision cannot fail to inform the entire synod process. Beyond all rhetoric and babble, it is a reversal of criteria, starting with what is stirring in the heart. And the tone of the spiritual conversation will also do well to allow itself to be evangelized by it.”

“Let us, therefore, welcome with awe and gratitude – as a “motherly” church, sent to care rather than to assert her own superior potestas – this style of the disciple: in the grace of the Lord Jesus, the paidion of the Father, the “delivered into our hands,” she insists.