A synod summary from the Polish synod fathers – Oct 12

Vatican City, Oct 12, 2018 / 03:45 pm (CNA).- The synod of bishops on young people, the faith, and vocational discernment is being held at the Vatican Oct. 3-28.

CNA plans to provide a brief daily summary of the sessions, provided by the synodal fathers from Poland.

Please find below the Polish fathers’ summary of the Oct. 12 session:

The themes discussed today were oriented by the search for general concepts that could give a new meaning to the entire document. Among them, that of the family appeared.

“It is necessary to write a new document, based on the Instrumentum Laboris,”  said the President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, summing up this day of the Synod’s work in discussion groups.

“The family is an institution that resembles the Church. The Church as a family must constantly accompany Her children. Just as no two vocations are ever exactly alike, but all are different, so too parents, in relation to their children, have to ask each day what they should do to bring them up well, to lead them to the fullness of the life towards which faith is advancing,” emphasized Archbishop Gądecki.

The family’s role in the life and the discernment of the young person’s vocation was also highlighted by Archbishop Grzegorz Ryś, who recalled that, according to the values declared by Polish youth, it is precisely the family which is the most important factor.

“Young people esteem the family in itself and if they are helped to understand the family’s value, then starting from it, one can lead them to faith, to God, who is the Creator of the family. We want to lead young people not only to truly live their youth but to discover Jesus Christ. In order to reach Him, one must first meet them in places that are important to them. Such places are friendship, work, freedom, and the family, which comes first,” said Archbishop Ryś.

Archbishop Ryś also spoke about the question of vocations.

“A vocation, in the broad sense, touches the eternal design of God in relation to every human being. Speaking about vocations, we want to say, first of all, that every person is needed and is eternally wanted by God, that God needs everyone. The fact of coming into being is accompanied by a call, that is a vocation.”

The head of the Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Gądecki, also noted that, in the course of today’s work, attention was drawn to the fact that the document lacks an acknowledgement that in order for it to be Christian, a young person’s calling must necessarily be connected with the cross.

Too often an excessively light vision of the lives of young people is presented, one which omits their worries and their engagement with the transcendental.