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CONCLUSION

Journeying In and With the Spirit

658 The spirit of the Lord has been with us in this Council as He has always been with

us, as He will always be with us, in our journeying into tomorrow.

659 We have, in this Council, looked into where we are as church today. We have asked

what our ecclesial faith has meant for us as a nation, what we have done with it.

What we saw in ourselves our weaknesses, our failings in living up to ourChristian faith; our strengths, our successes as well in making that faith our own

they are most humbling. In those weaknesses and strengths, failures and successes,

we discern the Lord patiently walking with us throughout. And He has dealt

wondrously with us. We cannot but respond in truly Filipino utang na loob.

660 We re-scrutinized in praying discernment the wellsprings of our faith. We asked

how from them we should envision ourselves for a renewed and renewing living ofour faith. And we came up with only one way: We must return to Christ, center our

life of discipleship wholly in Him, become a community after the image of the

Divine Trinity itself and all that we may become truly His people.

661 In discipleship, we re-commit ourselves to our mission of evangelizing both

ourselves, in a continuous process of growth in the life of faith, and our world, in anever ending striving to nurture in it or bring into it the saving and liberating values

of the Kingdom. And we realize that discipleship demands a radical turning to

Christ and with it a radical turning to the world too in order to make it wholly Hisown. An awesome task.

662 As clergy, as religious and as laity, we are committed in Christ and in community to

advancing that task the opus Patris (the work of the Father) entrusted to Him fromthe very beginning. It is a work of service to God and to people, and though we are

burdened with different ministries, graced with different gifts, we believed it is only

in our common service of charity that we will be united in and with Christ.

663 We have summed up our communing in the Spirit in this Council in the pastoral

proposals we offer to ourselves and the whole Church of the Philippines. They area distillation of what we intend to do as a Church in order to be more fully Church,

more fully disciples, more fully centered on Christ and His love, more fully attuned

to the breathing of the Spirit. We are only too painfully aware they are feeble

attempts to capture in words the ineffable richness of the Spirit moving within usnot only during this Council but also throughout our Church. We are also aware

only His further inspiring will make them come to fruition in an ever richer and

fuller life in Him for all of us.

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664 We go forth from this Council with a deepened knowledge and understanding of

ourselves as the Church of, and not merely in, the Philippines; with a clearer self-

definition too of ourselves as a Community of Disciples.