Local participation in the 2023 Synod of Bishops launched Oct. 17 with a Mass at which Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory said the great challenge of the two-year synodal process is for all parts of the Catholic Church to participate with “mutual respect, with genuine affection for one another and by a welcoming and profound openness to the working of God’s Holy Spirit.”
“Every member of the Church must feel the sincere invitation to participate in the synodal process,” Cardinal Gregory said in his homily. “We should be inspired to speak honestly with one another and to listen sincerely. We must not be afraid to hear the voices of those who may feel distant from the Church, or who have grown frustrated or scandalized by our past.”
The Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle opened with a choral prelude invoking the Holy Spirit, followed by the hymn “Christ Be Our Light,” in keeping with the theme of asking for guidance and blessings on the Synod process. The Synod theme is: “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission.”
The Synod begins in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington with listening sessions at parishes from now through about the end of the year, followed by an online survey for local Catholics and archdiocesan listening sessions. In the coming two years, material from parish listening sessions and archdiocesan-level gatherings will be compiled nationally. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will share those conclusions with the Vatican, along with their global counterparts, ending with an October 2023 gathering of bishops and delegates.
In his homily, Cardinal Gregory said “this is not the first time that our Church has engaged in the skill of listening.” In the very early days of the Church, Hebrew-speaking followers of Christ listened to their Greek-speaking neighbors who sought membership in the Church.
“Those exchanges swelled the number of Christians, because the words were addressed to the hearts of the faithful,” he said. “The conversations and dialogues with different people were helping to establish the Church of Christ.”
This is a similar moment, Cardinal Gregory said, “as we seek to reopen the doors of our churches and, even more importantly, to reopen the doors of our hearts.” He called it a positive consequence of the pandemic that people have become more aware of their interconnectedness, as communities faced the effects of COVID-19 on family, neighbors, and strangers, whether vaccinated or not, wearing masks or not.
“The pandemic has caused all of us to realize that what one of us does or does not do involves everyone,” Cardinal Gregory said. “We must seek to achieve the common good for all of God’s people.”
He noted that “prior to the pandemic there were – and still continue to be – far too many examples of isolation and human detachment that may have given us the impression that we can pursue life matters all alone.”
Now, he continued, “we are growing in our awareness that we can only exit this pandemic by working and living and loving together.”
Into this environment, Pope Francis is calling Catholics worldwide to participate in the Synod, explained Cardinal Gregory.
He said the purpose of the Synod is not to build a new church or a new doctrine, but to ask the Holy Spirit to lead the Church’s people to a new future that the Spirit governs.
“Let us walk together into that future that the Holy Spirit will awaken and guarantee for the Church,” he said.
The program for the Mass included text outlining the goals of the opening liturgy. In addition to invoking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they included entrusting the synodal process to God through the intercession of Mary and inspiring participation from throughout the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
All the materials related to the Synod may be found at: adw.org/about-us/resources/synod/
Women religious participate in the Oct. 17, 2021 Mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral opening the Archdiocesan Synod process. (CS photo/Andrew Biraj)
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