Synodality must not be reduced to a question of places to be taken in the Church, but must be rooted in the service of communion, in the image of Christ who gives his life for all. Governance in the Church is therefore a call to grow this communion, recognizing otherness, particularly between men and women, as an essential condition. The diaconal vocation, deeply linked to service, is crucial to avoid clericalism. Finally, it is in the Eucharist, the source of our participation in divine life, that true governance is illuminated, oriented towards salvation and the common good.
Photo : celebration at Evry Cathedral (France) © Adobe stock photos
When discussing governance in a synodal context, there is a great risk of focusing on the places to be taken around the feast table. Certain “moans” are sometimes expressed in terms of demands: where are the poor? Where do women fit in? Do young people have a say? How can religious people be integrated?
In the Gospel, those who were meditating on the places they could take were invited to adopt a more profound attitude. Christ offers a beautiful response that remains relevant today
As you know, the rulers of the nations are their masters, and the great ones make their power felt. But it shall not be so among you: whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. So the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mt 20:17-28).
There can be no participation in the life of the Church except in the service of a growing communion. This communion implies that each person, according to his or her vocation and state of life, enters into the gift that Christ gives us of his or her life. Participation in the life of the Church, the service of communion, is rooted in the Eucharist of Jesus.
Authority engages an awareness of communion in the Other.
To approach the notion of governance, we first need to define how authority engages an awareness of communion. The Book of Genesis reminds us that man was created in the image of God Man's vocation implies that he corresponds to this image inscribed in him. Indeed, what characterizes the human being is that he is created from within the Trinitarian communion. Unlike other creatures, who spring immediately from the creative Word - “God said, and it was” - the human being is created from a project expressed in the plural: “Let us make man in our image”. He is created from within the Trinitarian communion, to bring about greater communion between human beings and with the whole of creation. And to do this, the Lord “created him male and female”. The radical otherness inscribed in the creation of the human being is the mark of God. This foundational otherness is the very condition for communion and the integration of all other forms of otherness. In other words, for me, the other is a reflection of the One who is at the origin of all things, and from whom I receive life. Otherness is the gateway to who I am, to the life I'm called to make grow.
At each other's service
Communion can only be achieved in response to God's first words to man and woman after creating them: “Be fruitful and have dominion. This fruitfulness concerns all dimensions of our being (bodily, psychological and spiritual). It is by being at the service of the life of others, of the life given by God, that communion can be established and that human beings gain access to who they are.
In the Book of Genesis, the call to be fruitful precedes the call to dominate, precisely because the dominion in question can only be understood in the image of God, that is, by being at the service of life. The second account of creation makes explicit the way in which human beings include all of creation within themselves Born of the earth, he is shaped and endowed with a spiritual soul. He is thus linked to all earthly and spiritual creatures. From Genesis onwards, therefore, it is in a spirit of service to the life of others, which commits me fully with all my humanity in conscience, that there can be just authority: it enhances the common good, the gift of life throughout all creation.
Authority in the Eucharist
Sin has created a chasm in our relationship with God, with ourselves and with others. The relationship to communion, to the gift of life and to the common good will be marked by lust and concupiscence. God's covenant will consist in offering man a way to rediscover what he was made for. The Sabbath is a privileged place for this rediscovery. Contemplating God's rest in creation - the way in which the Lord continues to give life - and associating ourselves with this rest, this gift of life, is the condition for fulfilling the other commandments, which concern our relationship with our neighbor.
We share in the fullness of God's rest in the Eucharist It is by abiding in the action of grace that I will honor my father and my mother, that I will not kill, that I will not commit adultery.... The ten words are presented as a way of rediscovering right authority. This can only be understood and lived through the action of grace. The only human conscience is one whose judgment adjusts to the action of grace, to the gift of life, to the common good.
Communicating the life of Christ
It is the event of the Incarnation that will enable man not only to situate himself in relation to the gift of creation and the gift of life, but also, and more profoundly, in relation to the gift of redemption. Man is no longer simply called to recognize and communicate the life he receives from God, but is more profoundly called to communicate the Life of Christ. Christian communion is not simply a matter of serving the other's life, but of being at the service of his or her salvation, of this new law which is Christ's love for him or her. The true authority lived out by the Christian conscience consists in serving the salvation of the other. I no longer contemplate only the gift of life that animates him, but the fact that Christ gave his life for him.
This is how I understand my participation in the life of the Church. It's a Eucharistic participation Jesus' Eucharist resituates us in relation to one another in a spirit of service, according to each person's charisma.
The Church, for whom Christ gave his life
During his recent trip to Belgium, the Holy Father reminded us that the Church is a woman She is the one for whom Christ gave his life. It is in this light that Pope Francis invites us to understand the vocation of women The Eucharist never ceases to communicate to her the beginning of eternal life that dwells within her, and which she can then discern around her, naming and nurturing. Jesus' gift of his life not only re-establishes the original communion, it also reveals to the woman the mission of gathering God's salvation in order to communicate it to others. This mission goes beyond any particular ministry It goes beyond the hierarchical Church, for it is the principle of the mystical Church, the Church that never ceases to come to divine life through a pardon, an act of charity, etc.
Women's mission, a sign of Trinitarian engendering
As on the morning of the Resurrection, the woman's mission is a principal one She watches over the life that springs forth, helping it to grow through all its dimensions. This is why the mission Jesus gives the woman in the Gospel is to go and see her brothers, to tell them that he is going up to his Father and Our Father, to his God and our God. The woman intuitively recognizes the begetting relationship that unites Jesus to the Father. She is a sign of this, and it is also what she is called to witness to Jesus' apostles and disciples. For the Christian conscience only reaches true authority by lowering itself, by contemplating how this gift of divine life, this salvation, goes deeper than the trial of sin, and by making this salvation grow. The woman, in her intuitive relationship to begetting, is particularly marked by these pains of childbirth, by this choice of life that goes deeper than death, this choice of good that goes deeper than evil. True authority does not consist first and foremost in fighting evil, but in fostering the good, the gift of life that we discern in conscience in the light of redemption.
Governance in the Church: serving the Christian conscience of salvation
Governance in the Church can only be lived in the light of the Eucharist, of the salvation we are called to serve. So the question is no longer: “What is the place of women, religious or the poor?”, but: “How am I at the service of God's salvation?
We need to recognize how the Christian conscience is called to allow itself to be informed by the Paschal event, by Christ's death and resurrection. How do we live out our baptism?
The four moments of Christian freedom aptly describe this dynamic After the intention of situating ourselves in relation to the end that is salvation, we must make a choice that gives concrete expression to this salutary orientation. But this will only become effective when the mastery of my commitment becomes a service to the divine life that is always gushing forth and overflowing. It is then that we can speak of the fruit of our action. The call to fruitfulness heard in Genesis is fulfilled in the life of the Servant when he stoops to listen, to gather this divine life deeper than the trial of sin and death.
The diaconal vocation
The diaconal vocation seems to me to be decisive in this respect. The only way to become a priest or bishop is to remain a deacon. The diaconate is an antidote to clericalism As long as you're in service, you're free from the temptation of “power”. In my opinion, it's a “shame” that seminarians are “ordained deacons with a view to the priesthood”. For many, the diaconate is seen as a “stepping stone to the priesthood”, at the risk of missing out on the configuration to the Servant of Servants. Young men should enter the seminary to become deacons, and some of these, after discernment of their vocation, could be ordained priests. The ministerial diaconal vocation signifies the diaconal charism of the baptized It is by serving the vocation of others that I enter into communion and fulfill my vocation. Communion lived out in this way in the Church can become ferment for the edification of society.
A few ideas
A sense of God and of the otherness of man and woman, respect for the gift of life in all its dimensions, a sense of the common good and just authority are as much prophetic realities in the Church as they are challenges for society.
Allow me to mention a few concrete avenues that may help us to think about governance.
Eucharist and the meaning of God
If, as we've seen, it's the Eucharist that informs Christian consciousness, how does the Sunday celebration enable us to truly enter into the action of grace, and enter into an ever-deeper diaconal and missionary dynamic? How does thanksgiving inform the lives of our faithful? How does daily life become Eucharistic?
How can the celebration introduce our faithful to gratuity, rest, the service of communion and fraternity - in short, to the following of Christ? How can parishes instill a dynamic of community life?
The grace of the otherness
How can we reveal the grace of otherness: the otherness of men and women in the order of creation, and the otherness of states of life and vocations in the order of redemption? How can the different states of life and vocations shed light on each other? It seems to me that it is in a spirit of vocational service that communion becomes possible. How does the priestly vocation expressed by ordained ministers serve the prophetic vocation of consecrated persons and the royal vocation of the laity? How does the prophetic vocation of the consecrated serve the priestly vocation of ordained ministers and the royal vocation of the laity? How is the royal vocation of the laity at the service of the prophetic vocation of consecrated persons and the priestly vocation of ordained ministers? If not, thanks to the diaconal charism exercised by each and every one of us, which enables us to be priests, kings and prophets...
At the school of the most vulnerable
It seems to me that this spirit of service can only be lived out if everyone, in one way or another, is at the service of integrating the most vulnerable members of the community. This is where Christ's redemptive power springs from.
Fragile and vulnerable people are often keenly aware of the Lord's death and resurrection. They teach us to consent to this path of lowering and rising in the footsteps of Christ.
Cardinal Newman spoke of the conscience in terms of a “sanctuary”. It is the place of encounter with God. This encounter is always possible, whatever a person's situation. It's always a question of stooping down to listen more deeply, and letting ourselves be informed by God's voice. As the Lord reminds us, it is in this sense that prostitutes and publicans can go before us. Their conversion opens up unheard-of paths to salvation. It educates our conscience to this salvation, which is the only authoritative word. The Church is founded on it. It's also worth remembering that every person remains endowed with this awareness of salvation. A person with a mental handicap, or who for other reasons is limited in the exercise of his or her rational faculties, can have a very lively awareness of salvation. For if human faculties are abysmal, the gift of the Holy Spirit enables the person to live God's choice at the very heart of his or her existence, the choice of eternal life that resituates each person in spirit and in truth. So the real question is: how do we enable these people, who are often marginalized in our society, to exercise the salutary authority that is theirs and without which it would be difficult to speak of “communion” and governance?
Cardinal Ratzinger spoke of a rebirth of the Church based on small communities whose Eucharistic life stems from this service to the poor. If we need to rethink governance, it's from this service to the lives of the little ones that we need to do it, to rediscover the apostolic charisma of the first century, of the first churches. The apostles were those who, following in the footsteps of their master and Lord, were called to lay down their lives to communicate the deposit of faith, to bear witness to Christ's death and resurrection. In the same sense, Mary Magdalene was recognized as the apostle of the apostles. The lives of martyrs and saints express how apostolic grace dwells in the heart of the Christian, even if some signify it in a particular way through their ministry.