U.S. nuncio: Bishops must foster missionary zeal

Baltimore, Md., Nov 12, 2024 / 16:30 pm

A major challenge facing U.S. bishops today is to move faithful Catholics from private faith to a missionary commitment to lead others to Christ, the apostolic nuncio to the United States said Tuesday. 

Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Holy See’s U.S. ambassador, delivered his remarks Nov. 12 at the opening of the bishops’ annual fall plenary assembly in Baltimore, reflecting on a momentous year highlighted by the National Eucharistic Congress in July, a new encyclical on the Sacred Heart from Pope Francis, and the conclusion of the three-year Synod on Synodality in October, and final preparations for next year’s jubilee year for the worldwide Church. 

Striking a pastoral tone, Pierre offered an overarching theme linking all these initiatives: a call to “return to the heart” of Christ and then moving outward from this personal encounter to heed his call to spread the Gospel. 

“All of these experiences will produce fruit, provided that we return to the heart of Christ, that sacred place where human longing and divine love are united,” Pierre told the bishops. 

“It is there, in the heart of Christ, where we rediscover in a personal way the kerygma that we preach: Christ has become one of us, he has suffered and died to heal our wounds, he has risen, and he is alive with us now in the Spirit,” he said.

“The deeper we go into his heart, the more strengthened we will be to proclaim the good news together: the news of a hope that, in spite of everything in this world, does not disappoint.” 

Pierre was among the featured speakers at the 10th National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, the first such event in the U.S. in 83 years. As he did in July, he emphasized that the congress, the culmination of years of planning, ought to be viewed as only a beginning rather than an event that has now ended. 

“When we encounter Christ’s love in this way, we are compelled to share it with others,” he said of the intense encounters with the Eucharistic Lord that many participants experienced there. 

Building on that momentum, Pierre said, the country’s bishops must now “help the Church find the answers to the questions that were being asked at the conclusion of the Eucharistic Congress: How do we move from personal encounter to mission? Where are the new directions that the Spirit is leading us in our evangelization? What new avenues do we need to open in the life of the Church?”

“After all,” Pierre added, “a broad Eucharistic Revival can only occur if we are able to live the Eucharist in all its dimensions: not only by gathering to adore, but also by going out on mission, so that Christ can encounter others.” 

Pierre said Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the Sacred Heart, titled Dilexit Nos  (On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ), cites St. John Henry Newman as an example of someone who made the connection between Eucharistic encounter and Christian mission.  

“What Newman discovers is what each of us has discovered in his own encounter, both with the Eucharist, and with that ‘beating heart’ of the Lord whom we sense when we receive the gift of prayer,” Pierre said. 

“This experience imparts a knowledge that is deeper than any doctrinal formula: Christ is alive in our midst, and he desires to be one with us. This is what has the power to change our lives, first at an individual level, and then as members of the Body, the Church.” 

Pierre pointed to Pope Francis’ desire that the Church become more “synodal” as another expression of this sense of mission. 

“Several years into our synodal journey as a Church, some are still asking, ‘What is synodality?’” Pierre said. 

“Perhaps the language of devotion to the Sacred Heart can give us a way to understand,” he suggested. “The synodal Church is a gathering of people who have come into relationship with the heart of Christ and who are journeying together in order to share that relationship with others. 

“This Synod on Synodality was never about completing a ‘to-do list,’” Pierre continued.  

“As Pope Francis has always said, synodality is not about predicting certain outcomes. Instead, it’s about inviting more participation in the Church’s missionary discernment while at the same time deepening our shared participation with the Lord,” he said. “For that reason, we shouldn’t judge the ‘success’ of the synod based on which decisions have been made or whose vision for the Church has prevailed. If we are looking to see what the synod has ‘accomplished,’ we should look instead at the way in which conversations are happening at various levels in the Church. Is everyone participating who should be? Does listening take priority over competing? Is it an exercise of shared discernment?”

“To dialogue in this way requires constantly ‘returning to the heart,’” he said. “This takes a lot of discipline! It doesn’t yield immediate ‘results,’ and it doesn’t win quick and decisive ‘victories.’” 

Rather, synodality offers something “more powerful in terms of communion,” Pierre noted. 

“First, when we return to our own heart, we find what is actually there: our true desires, our hopes and dreams, our thoughts and our judgments. We also encounter our fears, our disappointments, our disdain, and our enmity. By opening our hearts — and all that is in them — to the heart of Christ, we allow him to unite his heart with ours, which both affirms and purifies our hearts as they become one with his,” he said. 

“With a heart that is more united to the heart of Christ, we have more capacity for unity with the hearts of others.”  

Finally, Pierre spoke in anticipation of the 2025 Jubilee, a yearlong celebration featuring a host of special events in Rome and around the world. 

“A jubilee is exactly what our world and our country need right now, but which no secular power or political solution could ever achieve,” said Pierre, who described it as an antidote to a deeply polarized political climate “that seems like a kind of war.” 

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Pierre called on the faithful to make their hearts into a “guest house” for another person with whom we might disagree, borrowing a phrase from German philosopher Martin Heidegger. 

“This would be a work of synodality,” the cardinal said. “It would also be a work of jubilee: a work that will help us, as bishops, to give a more credible witness to our people of the hope that does not disappoint. 

“This is the work to which we are called in this coming jubilee year,” Pierre told the bishops.