What the Press Is Missing With Synod on the Word of God

"Perhaps not everyone in the secular media will understand this, but the whole Church is preparing to experience an intense moment of reflection and prayer."

VATICAN CITY (Zenit) - As the bishops convened Sunday to begin the synod on the word of God, the Church began an "intense moment of reflection and prayer," says a Vatican spokesman.

And since evangelization and ecumenism are among the Church's great tasks in the 21st century, he added, the synod on the word of God has particular importance.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, dedicated the most recent edition of Vatican Television's "Octava Dies" to the 12th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.

According to Benedict XVI, Father Lombardi noted, the great tasks of the ecclesial community in the contemporary world, including evangelization and ecumenism, are "centered on the word of God and are justified and supported by this same word."

The Jesuit explained that after having reflected on the Eucharist three years ago, the bishops are now focusing on the other vital source of the Church's life, the word of God.

Although the Second Vatican Council made the word of God the theme of one of its most significant documents, "after 40 years it is necessary to speak about it again," he said.

This is so, Father Lombardi observed, because "above all every individual Christian, but also the community, must continually dispose itself to listen to the word of God, the true point of reference for their journey and daily conversion."

He added: "And there is still much to do to spread familiarity and use of Scripture among the Christian people, its reading and frequent meditation, the habit of praying from Scripture.

"And then [it is key] because Scripture is the basis of every Christian proclamation even in the modern world and in dialogue with its cultures. In particular, the Pope recalled that ecumenical dialogue cannot base itself on 'strategic expedients,' but on common reference and common conversion in the light of the word of God. Neither can dialogue with the Jewish people prescind from the Jewish reading of the Bible.

"Perhaps not everyone in the secular media will understand this, but the whole Church, gathered around the Synod, is preparing to experience an intense moment of reflection and prayer: We are at the heart of [the Church's] identity, at the source of its vitality under the action of the Spirit of God."