To adore and to serve
My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
In his homily for the closing Mass of the Synod last October (see selection below), Pope Francis reflected on our Lord’s response to the question, “Which commandment of the Law is the greatest?” (Mt 22:36). As the Holy Father reminds us, Jesus’ answer is clear: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:37-39).
Our lives as missionary disciples of Jesus Christ can be described as a spiritual journey whose sole object is to be united with God and one another. To obtain this goal, we must learn to recognize the absolute importance of loving God and our neighbor in ways that require us to set aside self-centeredness and to commit to the two principles that Pope Francis identifies as “adoration and service.”
Adoration is the way we show our love for God. We’re familiar with the more formal expression of adoration in the time we spend praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament. We believe that Christ is truly present to us in the Holy Eucharist, so our reverence for Him in this act of adoration is a powerful sign of our love for God. At the same time, what Pope Francis calls adoration extends beyond this prayerful expression before the Tabernacle to all aspects of our daily lives. We worship God when we make His will our first priority, when we reject all of the temptations that would lead us to sin, and when we live as God asks us to live—forsaking all idols and worshipping Him alone. We adore God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind when we make our daily lives an act of loving witness to the truth of God’s closeness to us.
The second way that we show our love for God and our neighbor is through service, especially when we serve those who are poor and vulnerable. The service expected from us is humble and selfless, and it is modeled in the life and teaching of our Redeemer who came to serve, not to be served (Mt 20:28). In the end, loving our neighbor is inseparable from loving God wholeheartedly, so for us Christians adoration and service are inseparable expressions of the same love, and both must be integral to everything we say and do.
During the next several months, I will be using this newsletter to offer my reflections on the Synthesis Report that was issued following the Synod last October. Dioceses throughout the Universal Church have been asked to find ways of reflecting on the Synthesis Report in order to provide a direct link to the General Secretariat of the Synod. “By taking their starting point from the convergences already reached, they are called to focus on the questions and proposals that are considered most urgent,” the Report’s Introduction states. In addition, “they are asked to encourage a deepening of the issues both pastorally and theologically, and to indicate their canonical implications.”
Our Archdiocese will participate formally in this process, but I hope my personal reflections as one who was privileged to attend the Synod’s meetings last October will be helpful for those who wish to better understand what synodality means and why it is so important for us today.
May all of us grow in our spiritual journey toward love of God and neighbor. And may Blessed Mary and all the Saints accompany us as we make adoration and service our life’s work.
Continue reading Cardinal Joseph Tobin’s latest newsletter.
