VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Three years after asking Catholics around the world to walk together in faith on a synodal journey, Pope Francis said the church cannot risk becoming “static” but must continue as “a missionary church walking with the Lord in the streets of the world.”

“We cannot remain inactive in the face of the questions posed by men and women of today, the challenges of our age, the urgency of evangelization and the many wounds that afflict humanity,” the pope said in his homily during the closing Mass. he said. synod Bishops’ Conclave in St. Peter’s Basilica on 27 October.

“An established church that involuntarily withdraws from life and confines itself to the margins of reality is a church that runs the risk of remaining blind and comfortable with its own discomfort,” he said.

Pope Francis delivered his sermon seated in front of the basilica’s newly restored 17th-century baldachin – a gilded bronze dome that has been covered with scaffolding since February for restoration work.

Cardinal Mario Grech, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, was the principal celebrant at the altar beneath the baldachin.

The previous day, the pope received the final document, which was approved by more than 350 members of the synod. The document called for increased participation of lay men and women at all levels of church life, including parishes, dioceses and seminaries.

Pope Francis said at the synod meeting on October 26 that he did not plan to issue an apostolic exhortation after the synod because of the “already very concrete indications” in the last synod document that he ordered to be published.

In his homily, the Pope called on the church not to remain “blind” to issues in the church and the world; This blindness could take the form of embracing worldliness, placing a premium on comfort, or having a closed view. heart.

He said the church must listen to men and women “who want to discover the joy of the Gospel,” but also to “those who have turned away from the faith” and the “silent cries of the indifferent.” ” Likewise the poor, the marginalized and the helpless.

“We don’t need an inert and defeatist church, but a church that hears the cry of the world and — I want to say this, maybe it might cause some scandal — we need a church that gets its hands dirty,” he said. “Worship your Lord.”

Reflecting on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Mark, in which a blind man heard Jesus passing, asked for healing, regained his sight, and then followed him, the pope emphasized that following God on the synodal path requires developing the capacity to hear the Lord . the confidence to walk past him and follow in his footsteps.

“We follow the Lord along the way, we don’t follow him closed in our societies, we don’t follow him in the labyrinths of our ideas,” he said. “Let us remember never to walk alone or by worldly standards, but to journey together, behind and alongside it.”

At the end of the Mass, four Vatican workers carried St. Peter’s pulpit into the basilica and placed it in front of the main altar. The chair, temporarily removed for restoration from its enclosure in a statue behind the rear altar of the basilica, is traditionally believed to belong to St. Peter, the first pope.

At the end of the mass, the Pope sat in his wheelchair, praying in front of the chair.

In his sermon he said: “This is the seat of love, unity and mercy, according to which Jesus commanded the Apostle Peter not to dominate others, but to serve them with charity.”

After the mass, the pope prayed the Angelus with visitors in St. Peter’s Square. Speaking at the conclusion of the Synod of Bishops, the pope asked people to “pray that everything we do this month will continue for the good of the church.”

(Read next: Father James Martin’s Synod summary of the final document of Synodality)