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The shepherds of the flock, in carrying out their ministry of bishops, know they can count on a special divine grace. In the Roman Pontifical, during the solemn prayer of ordination the principal ordaining bishop, after invoking the outpouring of the Spirit who leads and guides, repeats the words, already present in the ancient text of the Apostolic Tradition, "Father, you know the secrets of the heart, grant that your servant, whom you elected to the episcopate, to feed your holy flock and to perform in an irreproachable manner the mission of the high priesthood ".1 This continues to be carried out the will of the Lord Jesus, Pastor eternal, who sent the Apostles as He was sent by the Father (cf. Jn 20, 21) and wanted their successors, the Bishops were shepherds in his Church until the end of secoli.2The image of the Good Shepherd, so beloved even by the early Christian iconography, was well aware that the bishops from throughout the world, gathered from September 30 to October 27, 2001, for the Tenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. At the tomb of Peter, they reflect with me on the figure of the Bishop, Servant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the hope of the world. All were unanimous in believing that the figure of Jesus the Good Shepherd is the image to which we must constantly refer. No one can be considered pastor worthy of the name 'nisi per unum caritatem efficiatur cum Christo' .
3 This is the fundamental reason why 'the ideal figure of the bishop, on which the Church continues to count, is that of a pastor who , configured to Christ in holiness of life and spend generously for the Church entrusted to him, bringing together in the heart of concern for all the Churches throughout the world (cf. 2 Cor 11, 28) '.4The Tenth Assembly of the Synod of Bishops2. Let us, then, thanks to the Lord for having granted us the gift of celebrating once more an assembly of the Synod of Bishops and to make it a truly profound experience of being Church. Held in the wake of the Great Jubilee of the millennium, the beginning of the third Christian millennium, the Tenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops followed a long series of meetings: the special ones, all united by the prospect of evangelization in the various continents , Africa, America, Asia, Oceania and Europe, and the ordinary ones, the last of which were devoted to a reflection on the Church in the richness of the different vocations awakened by the Spirit of the People of God . In this perspective, the attention given to the ministry of Bishops has completed the framework of the ecclesiology of communion and mission that you must always keep in mind.In this regard, the Synod made constant reference to the pronouncements on the doctrine and ministry of bishops outlined by the Second Vatican Council, especially in the third chapter of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium and the Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops Christus Dominus .
Of this luminous doctrine, which repeats and develops traditional theological and legal issues, my predecessor of v. m. Paul VI was right to say: "It seems to us that episcopal authority emerges from the Council claimed in its divine institution, confirmed in its irreplaceable function, renewed in its pastoral responsibility of teaching, sanctifying and governing, honored in its extension to the Church universal way of collegial communion, as specified in its hierarchical, comforted in the fraternal co-responsibility with the other bishops to the universal and particular needs of the Church and greater involvement in a spirit of joint cooperation with the conditional union and head of the Church, the center of incorporation of the College of Bishops '.5At the same time, as determined by the assigned topic, the synod fathers have reconsidered their ministry in the light of theological hope. Even this task has now emerged as pertinent to the mission of the pastor who, in the Church is first of all to bear witness to the Easter and eschatological.A hope founded on Christ3. Task, in fact, of every Bishop to proclaim hope to the world, from the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the hope "not only as regards the penultimate, but also and especially the eschatological hope, the one that awaits riches of the glory of God (cf. Eph 1, 18), which exceeds anything that has ever entered the human heart (cf. 1 Cor 2, 9) and which can not be compared with the sufferings of this present time (cf. Rom 8 18) ".6 The theological perspective of hope, along with faith and charity, must completely pastoral ministry of the Bishop.
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