On June 7, at Mdina, during the liturgical celebration marking the feast of Pentecost, the Archbishop officially promulgated the proceedings of the Synod, held during these past three years. Through this official acceptance, he initiated the period of implementation of the suggestions and orientations which emerged from the discussions during the numerous sessions of the Synod, so that, through a process of renewal, the Church in Malta could better respond to the call of the Lord: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." (Mt. 28,19).

Gone are the days when we could assume that a preson can be considered a Christian simply because she or he has been baptised. As Tertullian, one of the great writers of the Church, has it, we are not born Christians, we become Christians. The problem is that many of our fellow countrymen and women are born Christians, i.e. baptised at birth, but never become so.

At the heart of the Christian identity there must lie an option, if not explicitly stated, at least consciously assumed and sustained by a coherent practice inspired by the example of Jesus and his Gospel. Our society has ceased to be a sort of a "social catechumenate" guaranteeing the transmission of our faith by means of the cultural-religious milieu it has generated throughout the centuries.

This milieu involves within its structures the totality of the life of our people, in the form of the family, the school, the parish, and indeed the public display of religious reminders all around our island.

The traditional model of being a Christian, that of the "practising Catholic" model, strictly faithful to Sunday Mass attendance and to a basic sacramental participation, but unmindful or unable to relate his faith convictions to the broader issues of human conviviality, is in crisis.

This scenario can be viewed from two different perspectives: a) the perspective of a menace, endangering the faith and Christian identity, needing as a remedy the return to fundamentalist and inward-looking positions in regard to faith and doctrine, considered outside, above and untouchable by the ensuing historical changes; this view confounds the living Christian experience with an immobile, once-and-for-all expressed doctrine; or b) as a sign of the times, calling us to relate our faith to the demands of a new historical context, outside of which there is no salvation.

In fact, the biblical God does not relate to us in an abstract, clinically neutral sphere, but in the changing historical context of our life, in the manner we relate to and involve ourselves in it, so as to be able to search therein the presence of the Spirit, urging the Christian community to discern and respond.

A glance at the footnotes of almost each page of the Synod documents reveals that the main inspiration throughout the proceedings to elaborate the themes and projects in discussion, was the message of that greatest of events of our contemporary Church, Vatican II, especially Lumen Gentium (The Church) and Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World).

This is the key to interpret what the Synod was about and what it has to say to us: the Synod urges us to abandon an inward looking image of the Church, defensively positioned in front of a menacing world, intent on destroying its values, in favour of a Samaritan image of the Church whose only meaning lies in its mission to relate to the world and society in the style of Jesus of Nazareth, as companion and servant.

This perspective leads the Church to perceive the world as a greater reality than itself, with whom she has to collaborate to bring about the Kingdom of God. This mystique of the Kingdom, which is God's global project of salvation, abolishes any division between a religious space of faith and sacrament, occupied and administered by the Church, and a mundane, often perceived as rival, socio-political-economic space, in the charge of civil society.

The credibility of any religious group is today measured by how much this group collaborates and contributes to the spiritual, human and ethical advancement of society, so that people can cohabit in this one space of ours in peace and harmony, respectful of mutual human rights and obligations.

This mystique of the Kingdom launches the Church in Malta in a project of evangelisation, periodically revised and upgraded according to new needs.

Many still understand evangelisation as the teaching of a doctrine, mainly addressed to children and adolescents until cristening, in the hope that it can withstand and survive the challenges of growth. And this is expected to occur notwithstanding the lack of accompaniment and support which should be expected from the adult Christian community, who should be their reference in the growth towards an ever maturer experience and perception of the faith, harmoniously integrated to her daily life.

The Synod, in this respect, rightly points out (cf. Kelma/Xandir, 85 unpublished version) in line with the experience of other Churches, that faith-formation is an adult affair and that the earlier stages should be thought out in this perspective.

To achieve this renewal, the Synod envisages a pastoral strategy, aimed primarily at the grassroots level of our people, in the form of a concentrated and systematic encounter of our communities with the Word of God as expressed in the Bible.

The objective is not simply to transmit a doctrine, but to form the faith of the communities, in a context of liturgy, celebration and reflection. Thus the people can gradually perceive and enhance their vocation to become more and more the priestly People of God, whose mission is to serve and bear witness, in order to instill hope in the hearts and lives of our contemporaries, especially the most vulnerable, such as the family, our adolescents and youth, the victims of injustice, wherever this occurs.

We still live in a situation where many, although Catholics, oppose hospitality given to immigrants, harbour a vindictive attude towards those in prison, support the war as a solution to political problems, favor the inferior status of women within the Church, are incapable of distinguishing between an assistentialist type of solidarity (even if needful) and a different type of solidarity aimed at the abolition of structures which cause misery and exclusion.

The Church in Malta is in a moment of kai1ros (the right time). A Church which ushers from a Synod is a Church which has perceived that the time is ripe for change.

Great will be the frustration if changes are not delivered, from top to bottom. It would be good if even an ounce of that urgency for change which people expected the political parties to bring about, should now be directed to bring changes within the Church. Not changes for change's sake, but because we love our Church and we perceive her indispensable contribution in bring about a better Malta, in the form of a just, caring society of equals, renewed in her Christian identity.

The mark of this identity is not simply any outward manifestation of patron saint jubilation, but mainly because she sees in Jesus Christ and his message of God as Father and Spirit of love and communion her inspiration and force in the difficult mission to live humanly.

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