March 11, 2018 - "Cardinal Wuerl's Pastoral Plan"

The richness of the Church's perennial teaching on love, marriage, family, faith, and mercy.

The essential aspect of pastoral ministry, called accompaniment

Several significant themes such as the New Evangelization, the role of conscience, and the privileged place of the parish where we find and experience Christ's way of living and loving.

I now what to present some of the points in the Executive Summary of the Cardinal's Pastoral Plan for implementing  Amoris Laetitia.

The Church's Perennial Teaching

The Cardinal's Pastoral Plan begins with a summary of the teaching of  Amoris Laetitia highlighting how the first half of the exhortation focuses on the centrality of God's love. The vocation of the human family is revealed in the infinite love of the Lord who was made incarnate in a human family, and who gave himself for our sake and continues to dwell in our midst. The second half of the exhortation provides some pastoral perspectives. Here the exhortation invites a reflection on the right course of action in ministering to those who struggle to grasp and to live out the teaching. The Church wishes, with humility and compassion, to reach out to the people and families who struggle to live the teaching on marriage, and to help them overcome obstacles through discernment, dialogue, and prayerful support and understanding to overcome obstacles. Some may ask, "Is the teaching always binding?" The answer of course is yes. Yet  Amoris Laetitia invites us to look with a parental attitude at those families who find themselves in a position where they struggle to even understand, let alone embrace fully, the teaching because of the concrete circumstances in which they live.

The Circumstances of Our Day

The Cardinal's Pastoral Plan considers in detail the challenges that families encounter today in receiving the Church's teaching on marriage because of the highly secularized cultural environment in which they live. Our age is one in which there are many barriers to encountering Christ and appropriating the Church's teaching, as people live in a world marked by secularism, materialism, and individualism, all supporting a prevalent and dominant relativism. Because of this lack of cultural support, the ministry for encountering and accompanying families through a process of discernment and growth in the faith becomes essential to the task of the New Evangelization, as we share Christ's love and truth in our homes, our communities and our world.

The Ministry of Accompaniment

The ministry of accompaniment takes different forms and shapes depending on the particular pastoral situations. Accompaniment includes fidelity to Church teaching and awareness of how the teaching is being received or even able to be perceived. Such a ministry is a collaborative effort of priests and laity who understand themselves to be missionary disciples, who experience the love of the Lord in their encounter with him and who seek to share it with others. We recognize that each of us is a sinner in need of wholeness and that we have all fallen short of the great plan God has laid out for us. Each of us is in need of healing and so we journey together as brothers and sisters united in our common need for the love and mercy of God that heals every broken heart.

Until next week

Fr. John Dillon