SPIRITOFST.FRANCIS | ASK A FRANCISCAN
By Pat McCloskey, OFM
Preparing for the 2023 World Synod of Bishops
I have seen a couple of articles about this synod. These articles suggested that it would be helpful to read (or reread) the Vatican II documents. Can you recommend a book describing what Vatican II was all about? Something in plain English without interpretation by the author? irst, start with the documents themselves. I suggest Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations, edited by Austin Flannery, OP (Costello Publishing). This inclusive-language translation is very readable. “For a synodal Church: communion, participation, and mission” is the theme for this synod. Preparation documents are available via the synod link at Vatican.va. Every book about Vatican II includes an interpretation. I highly recommend What Happened at Vatican II, by John W. O’Malley, SJ (Belknap Harvard). If you read only the council’s final documents, Pope Francis celebrates a Mass at the Vatican on October you won’t know, for example, why the original 10, 2021, to open the process that will lead up to the draft of what became the Dogmatic Constitution assembly of the world Synod of Bishops in 2023. on Divine Revelation was rejected by most of the bishops in November 1962, requiring years of extensive revision before its final approval on November 18, 1965. I had Father O’Malley as a professor at the University of Detroit in 1970, a transformative experience. His recent and excellent memoir, The Education of a Historian: A Strange and Wonderful Story (St. Joseph’s University Press), includes memories of his doing doctoral-level historical research in Rome between 1963 and 1965, attending several council events and following its work. He was the first Catholic priest to receive a fellowship to the American Academy in Rome, where he wrote his PhD dissertation in history for Harvard. If you want an even closer look at the council, you might enjoy My Journal of the Council, by Yves Congar, OP (Liturgical Press). Perhaps the busiest of the council’s periti (experts), he advised on the council’s preparation, worked during all four sessions on many of the council’s major documents, and was involved in the council’s implementation. Named a cardinal in 1994, Congar died the following year. The synod, which will close in October 2023, was initiated last October. It will have a diocesan phase (October 2021 to August 15, 2022) and a later national/continental phase. The word synod means “listening/journeying together.” In a sense, this synod is asking, “What is God asking of the Catholic Church in this time and place?” I think all of us need to ponder that question and our response. Answers to that question will certainly stretch everyone.
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Satan’s Origins
Prior to becoming evil, when was Satan created? Did the rebellion of Satan and the fallen angels occur soon after the creation of humans? any people expect the Bible to say more about Satan than it does. Originally, the term meant “accuser.” Only later was he thought of as a single person. Many Christians are surprised to read in the Book of Job that Satan has easy access to God’s court (1:6–12 and 2:1–10). Satan was created as an angel but rebelled. “I will not serve,” he famously says in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. In a sense, Satan illustrates this proverb from St. Gregory the Great, “The worst is the corruption of the best.” Satan’s rebellion must have taken place before the serpent tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden in chapter 3 of Genesis. Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation refers to a battle between the Archangel Michael and Satan.
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10 • February 2022 | StAnthonyMessenger.org
ISTOCK PHOTOS: COMPOSITE: MARIA MARGANINGSIH (ROSARY) AND MARIANA MIKHAILOVA (DOG WALKING)
Pat McCloskey, OFM
TOP LEFT: MC KOZUSKO/SAM; TOP RIGHT: CNS PHOTO: REMO CASILLI/REUTERS
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