VATICAN CITY (CNS): Learning to pray with the Scriptures, improving homilies and ensuring an accurate interpretation of Bible passages were the major themes of formal presentations, open discussion and small-group work on October 7 and 8 at the world Synod of Bishops on the Bible.
Canadian Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, the synod’s English-language briefing officer, said the three concerns came up repeatedly during the October 7 open-mike discussion in the synod hall and in small groups on October 8.
Pope Benedict XVI was not present for the October 7 evening session, and he does not participate in the small-group discussions.
Fr Rosica said many synod participants asked not just for an explanation of “lectio divina” (divine reading – a form of prayerful meditation on Scripture), but also asked someone to lead the synod in the exercise so members could experience it for themselves.
“One of the things that is emerging from all over the place is not just the need for ‘lectio divina’, but many of the bishops say, ‘We don’t know what it is; would you please model this?’
Another topic repeatedly raised by synod participants, he said, was the need to improve homilies.
Several people mentioned that “homiletics has a very low priority in seminaries” and one participant told synod members, “I took one homiletics course for one semester, one hour a week and that’s all I ended up with”.
Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Congo, special secretary of the synod, spoke about the spread of sects and how they challenged the Church to explain that a fundamentalist reading of the Bible violates what the Bible itself says about interpretation.
While describing a “cancerous proliferation of all types of sects”, the archbishop said that in the New Testament the apostles warned Christians that some parts of the Scriptures were hard to understand and that “false teachers” were leading Christians astray.
