By a large majority, the 170 cardinals voted to study synodality and the mission of the Church as topics to be studied today, Thursday, at the Extraordinary Consistory. The other two, Praedicate evangelium and liturgy, will be addressed directly in Rome by the Pope and the cardinals of the Curia. Yesterday's session was coordinated by Cardinal Angel Fernandez Artime, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Consecrated Life.
Earlier this morning, Pope Leo XIV pointed out in the homily of the Mass for the Church to the 170 Cardinals present (out of the total of 245 in the College of Cardinals), that “we are not here to promote “agendas” - personal or group agendas - but to entrust our projects and inspirations to the scrutiny of a discernment that surpasses us «as heaven rises above the earth» (Is 55:9) and that can only come from the Lord”.
Nor is our College “a team of experts” but “a community of faith”, “in which the gifts that each one brings, offered to the Lord and returned by Him, produce the maximum fruit, according to His Providence”.
To place all thoughts and desires in the Eucharist
With the Gospel text of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes as a reference point, the Pontiff invited us to place “all our desires and thoughts on the altar, together with the gift of our life, offering them to the Father in union with the sacrifice of Christ, so as to recover them purified, illuminated, fused and transformed, by grace, into a single loaf. Only in this way, in fact, will we truly know how to listen to his voice, welcoming it in the gift that we are to one another, which is the reason for which we have come together.”.
“Our stopping, a great act of love”.”
The Pope then referred to the “moment of grace in which we express our union in the service of the Church,” which is the Extraordinary Consistory.
Our “stopping”, he said, is “above all, a great act of love - for God, for the Church and for men and women throughout the world - with which to allow ourselves to be molded by the Spirit, first in prayer and silence, but also by looking each other in the eye, listening to one another and making ourselves the voice, through sharing, of all those whom the Lord has entrusted to our care as pastors, in the most diverse parts of the world”.
An act that must be lived with a humble and generous heart, aware that it is by grace that we are here and there is nothing we have that we have not received as a gift and talent that should not be wasted, but used with prudence and courage”.
Saint Leo the Great
If earlier he had quoted St. John Paul II, a habitual reference in his words in the Consistory, at this point he mentioned St. Leo the Great, who taught that “It is something great and very precious in the eyes of the Lord when all the people of Christ are dedicated together to the same duties, and all the degrees and all the orders, [...] collaborate in the same spirit [...] (Sermon 88,4)” (Sermon 88,4).
This is the spirit in which we want to work together, Leo XIV stressed. “It is the spirit of those who desire that, in the Mystical Body of Christ, each member cooperate in an orderly way for the good of all (cf. Eph 4:11-13)”.
Inadequate and without means, but “we can help each other and the Pope”.”
Of course, we too, in the face of the “great multitude” of a humanity hungry for good and peace, continued the Successor of Peter, “in a world where satiety and hunger, abundance and misery, the struggle for survival and the desperate existential void continue to divide and wound individuals, nations and communities, in the face of the Master's words: ‘Give them something to eat yourselves’ (Mk 6:37), can feel like the disciples: inadequate and without means”.
However, Jesus repeats to us again: ‘How many loaves do you have? Go and see’ (Mk 6:38), and we can do this together.
We will not always succeed in finding immediate solutions to the problems we have to face, Leo XIV considered. “However, we will always, in every place and circumstance, be able to help one another - and in particular to help the Pope - to find the “five loaves and two fish” which Providence never makes lacking when her children ask for help; and to welcome them, give them, receive them and distribute them, enriched with God's blessing, the faith and love of all, so that no one lacks what is necessary (cf. Mk 6:42)”
Praise to the cardinals, and gratitude
At the conclusion of the homily of the Mass, celebrated at the Altar of the Chair of St. Peter, Leo XIV praised the work of the cardinals.
“Dear brothers, what you offer to the Church with your service, at all levels, is something great and extremely personal and profound, unique for each one and precious for all; and the responsibility you share with the Successor of Peter is grave and onerous. For this I thank you with all my heart”.
Finally, he entrusted our work and our mission to the Lord, saying, in the words of St. Augustine: “Remember, O Lord, that we are dust, and out of dust you made man” (Confessions, 10, 31, 45). Therefore we say to you: ‘Give what you command and command what you will’ (ibid.)”.
There will be no final document
It has been reported that there will be no final document of the work of the 170 cardinals who have attended this first extraordinary Consistory convoked by Pope Leo XIV. Morning and afternoon sessions and a lunch with the Pope will take place today. At the end of the day, the Vatican plans to provide some additional information.
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