A reading of the holy gospel according to Luke. Now it happened that as Jesus was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, who do the people say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist, but others say Elijah, and others still that one of the old prophets has arisen. And then Jesus said to them, but who do you say that I am?
And Peter answered, the Christ of God, meaning the anointed of God. But Jesus charged and commanded them to tell this to no man saying, the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and on the third day be raised from the dead. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
Today, it's already taken place, I guess, in Vatican City, Rome, Italy, Europe. As the synod of Catholic bishops has has begun its first day of its meeting, the synod of bishops. And on August 15, our holy father sent a letter to all the bishops, which was published in the Observatory Romano, and I carefully preserved it for today. Because the letter tells us something, it's our holy father speaking to his brother priests, the bishops, and through them to us. The theme of this synod is the role of the Christian family in the modern world.
Now, one of the the first thing that strikes me about any talk about the family is where is it? Who's in it? So many of us are not in a family environment, environment. We are not part of a family unit taking a sort of a superficial point of view. It's been some years since I lived in a family.
If I ever did, I don't know. But there are certain things which we have to admit about the family, whether we're in it or out of it or above it or below it or whatever, or have been in it and are now longer no longer in what we call the family. That is taking a superficial view of the word family. And yet our holy father in the in this letter to the bishops makes a big thing out of it. And he makes a big thing out of the what he thinks ought to be the great theme of the family, that it should follow Jesus Christ.
Well, the first thing that strikes me is he was a great destroyer of the family. I could build up a fine argument on this. You know, he has some powerful passage about if you love him, what you're supposed to do with your mother and your father and your brothers and your sisters and your aunts and your uncles, and I guess your cousins too. He tells you you're supposed to leave them all for his sake. So I suppose he was probably the world's greatest destroyer of the family.
Let me hasten to add and very quickly hasten to add, that's from a certain point of view. As I've read recently, a man said, I certainly would want Jesus Christ as a neighbor. Now what does this all come back? What are we in the world are we talking about? Now notice there's one little word in there, the role of the Christian family in the modern world.
Now, as I say, Christ spent he spent in a from a chronological point of view, as the calendar goes, he spent far he spent almost all of his life in a family environment. I suppose we can say that. His public life, two or three years, three at the most, and possibly only two. And so if you look at it from that point of view, Christ was very much a family person. Now you are not when you read the the three the four gospels, you will not find our blessed lord in there telling us a great deal about the family.
As such, specifically, definitively, And here is one case where I I think this is just one of them, but where we have to see and hear and discover the living voice of Jesus Christ. Remember this, Christ did not put together a book or two books or three books or a whole encyclopedia and give it give it to his disciples or I should say his apostles and say, look, take these these volumes and go out and spread the word. He did nothing of the sort. He said, go out when he sent them, the apostles, those who are sent, he said, go out and teach all that I have taught you, and I will be with you until the end of time. He never said a thing about providing us with a book.
Well, where is his teaching supposed to be? From a private revelation? Possibly. That's Luther's great theme, and it certainly is not beyond god's power. The only thing is there are it is not something which we can readily accept on a factual or or an evidential basis.
And so if if the if our blessed lord commissioned his apostles to carry the word and to teach what he taught. And he said that there are many things that I haven't taught given to you but will will be revealed to you. And he didn't say they're gonna come in a book or on a tape. This was Newman's great thing, the development of doctrine. And so where is the living voice of Jesus Christ speaking to the world today?
Well, I think I know where it is. It's in the holy Roman Catholic church speaking through the successor of Peter who is the present man, the man from Poland, John Paul the second. And he is speaking to the world on the Christian family in the modern world because the world has changed and the family has certainly suffered many a bruise, many a bruise. And the point that we have got to realize, all of us, is the importance of the family to the church. That's what we're and, of course, when I say that, I'm simply echoing one of the most basic theses of all sociology and that is that the family is the basis of society.
Nobody can deny this. And secondly, nobody in the in in our contemporary world, if that is true, if the family is the basis of society, if that's where most of us came from in some way or other, if that is true, then anything which afflicts the family is a disaster for society. And ergo, anything that afflicts the Christian family is afflicting Christ Church. Now I think it's significant that in 1977, which was the last synod, that the theme of that synod was catechesis, teaching, catechism. How much of that's being done in the home?
I don't know. How much of it's being done anywhere? I don't know. But the thing is, the family is the heart and the soul of our beginnings. It's the heart and the soul of our ongoing years, And the family does not cease to have it.
I'm speaking now specifically of the physical family. It doesn't cease to have its importance when the kids are grown up and leaving. And those and all of us need to feel in a bigger sense, taking family in a larger sense, that we are all members of God's family. Whether we're married or single or what have you, our lives are very different. But we are not asked nor are we expected.
This is important to live an isolated life apart from roots. And you will hear people saying, I don't have any roots, and you all you know what that big deal was over a book that was called roots. But it is important not to be rootless, and that is one thing none of us can honestly say, that we have no roots when we call ourselves sons and daughters of Jesus Christ. Because if you're sons and daughters with Jesus Christ, then you have one common father. And that is the beginning, it seems to me, of a pretty important family.
The holy father uses this phrase. I don't know whether it's I probably not original, the family the home of the church. That That's a very important thing to remember. And because you see it lends itself to the conception of the family when it's remember, no family is a permanent thing. It begins with two a man and a woman usually to get together, then they have children.
And, of course, it seems like eternity till they grow up and then all of a sudden a house that was bustling with excitement and tragedies and joys and celebrations and noise and comings and goings and the telephone ringing and, you know, the whole business, all of a sudden, it's so silent. So silent. I have seen families where there were seven and eight children. In a matter matter of a few years, the house was empty. Now but you see, the family, that's an interlude.
That's just an interlude because thing begins again when when you have other homes, other families, and they start then coming back. And we never get over this. Now, where I think we can make this mistake is in thinking of the family in too limited a term. Not at all minimizing the importance of the physical family in the in the literal sense of the word, but never for one minute forgetting family in the larger sense of our belonging to Jesus Christ, we are his brother. We are the sons and the daughters of almighty god.
That you see? And so that this all goes together, so that the family in its literal sense is of tremendous importance to us all. And from a kid Christian and church point of view, it's the it is the very heart and the soul of the thing. And so let us the holy father wrote this letter asking for prayers, so let us make that our petition of this mass that we will pray for the success of this senate. It has problems.
And what is a mystery to me is the is the pressures being brought from outside upon the holy Roman Catholic church to moderate, to weaken, to slacken off on its great truths which guards the fidelity of the family, the permanency of the family, the holiness of the family. There's one voice in the world today which is upholding these things and that's the voice, the living voice of Jesus Christ in his church. The name of the father, son, and spirit. Amen.