Pastoral Letter: Reflections on the Synod

Dear Sisters and Brothers –
 
Last month the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) submitted to Rome its report on the Synod, summarizing 10 months of listening sessions in U.S. parishes and dioceses. These listening sessions were an opportunity for Catholics to reflect on their experiences of Communion, Participation, and Mission (the three principal themes of the Synod) in order to discern the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Church today. The report is a synthesis of more than 22,000 individual reports from parishes around the United States. It highlights the joys, hopes, and wounds present in the U.S. Church and reveals a deep desire among Catholics for greater communion. I find it a very hopeful and encouraging document, and I encourage you to read it. You will find English and Spanish language versions of the document on the Synod page of our website.
 
You will remember that our Parish Synod last winter consisted of three online sessions (each offered twice), in which more than 100 parishioners and friends participated. In the first session, we shared our personal stories of being members of the Church, and we listened without comment to the stories of others. Notes were taken, compiled and sent out to participants to reflect on and pray with prior to the second session. During those conversations, we shared our affective reactions to what we heard and read, again without comment, attempting to notice how the Spirit was moving among the participants. Again, notes were taken, compiled and prayed with for the third session, during which we prayerfully asked ourselves what seemed important to God, what might God want us to share with the larger Church. The results were then sent through various channels to Rome. You can access those results on the Synod page of our website.
 
I was deeply consoled to hear strong echoes of our own Synodal experience as I read the report by the USCCB. All of the joys, hopes, and wounds expressed by our community are represented in the report. It is comforting to know that we walk with and share things in common with other Catholics throughout the United States. It is also remarkably encouraging to know that our experience of and in the Church will be part of the conversation that takes place in Rome next year as the Synod continues there with reports from every region of the globe and their representatives. I am confident that this process hoped for by the participants in the Second Vatican Council and recovered by Pope Francis has and will continue to make ample room for the Holy Spirit to move and breathe and speak, and – crucially – offer ample opportunity for participants to notice where and how she is moving and breathing and speaking.
 
We are doing the same here at St. Ignatius. Two weeks ago, the Parish Council and a few members of the Parish Staff met for some initial, prayerful reflection on our Synod results. It is our own attempt to discern how the Holy Spirit is at work at St. Ignatius Parish. At our November meeting, we will engage a similar process, reflecting on our Home4Dinner experience nearly three years ago. (For those new to St. Ignatius, in 2019-20, one weekend a month, we held just one Mass, which was followed by a meal together. Between 650 to 800 people attended the Masses, and 350 to 450 broke bread together afterwards. It was really, really cool. Unfortunately, our envisioned series of six Home4Dinners was interrupted by the pandemic after the fourth weekend.) Those were remarkable moments of praying together, of community, of what it means to “do” and to “be” Church. There is so much to be mined there, much that the Holy Spirit was doing in and among us that is important – essential – to notice and to bring forward into our way of being a parish community. This is the task of the Parish Council these next months. It is my intention to then bring the fruit of these conversations to Commissions and to the wider parish, so that we can discern together God’s desires for St. Ignatius Parish as we continue to emerge from the pandemic and look to the future. As Pope Francis reminds us, synodality – the process of listening deeply to one another in the attempt to discern God’s presence and voice – is not a one-time event, but rather an invitation to an ongoing style of Church life.
 
I ask you to join me in praying for our parish in this ongoing process of being a synodal Church. And, as always,
 
oremus pro invicem.
 
Fr. Greg