ROME – Pope Francis Wednesday inaugurated the final session of his Synod of Bishops on Synodality, urging participants to be humble in listening to others and to be open to ideas and positions that are different from their own.
Speaking during his Oct. 2 inaugural Mass for the synod, the pope asked God to help participants “live the days that lie ahead in a spirit of listening, mutual care and humility.”
“Let us listen to the voice of the Spirit, feeling welcomed and accepted with love,” asking that participants be the voices of their people, especially the smallest, most humble and most vulnerable, “for through them, the Lord continues to call us to exercise our freedom properly and remind us of our need for conversion.”
Formally opened by Pope Francis in October 2021, the Synod of Bishops on Synodality is a multi-stage process of consultation that has unfolded at the local, national, continental and universal levels.
Formally it is titled, “For a synodal Church: Communion, participation, mission.”
After an initial Rome-based gathering last year, which marked the first time that laypeople generally were allowed to participate, and that women were given voting rights, the synod will culminate with this month’s Oct. 2-27 Rome gathering, which gathers 368 prelates from around the world.
The process has at times been controversial due to hot-button discussion topics, such as women’s priestly ordination, the women’s diaconate, priestly celibacy, and the inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals.
However, while prominent aspects of last year’s October discussion, those specific issues have largely been taken out of the official working document and have instead been assigned to 10 working groups tasked with further studying specific topics that came out of the synod last year.
Those working groups will not participate in this year’s synod, however, they are scheduled to give presentations on their work thus far to the synod assembly Wednesday afternoon.
In his homily for the inaugural Mass, Pope Francis noted how the day’s biblical readings state the need to listen to the voice of the angel, saying this must also happen in the synod, as participants must listen to the hopes and experiences of the people.
This is done by listening to and reflecting on the contributions gathered over the past three years, he said, saying, “With the help of the Holy Spirit, we must listen to and understand these voices – that is, the ideas, the expectations, the proposals – so as to discern together the voice of God speaking to the Church.”
“Ours is not a parliamentary assembly, but rather a place of listening in communion,” he said.
For true listening to happen, participants, he said, must free themselves from everything that prevents them from charity and from “creating harmony in diversity in us and among us.”
“Those who arrogantly claim to have the exclusive right to hear the voice of the Lord cannot hear it,” he said, cautioning attendees against seeing their own contributions “as points to defend at all costs or agendas to be imposed.”
Francis voiced hope that each of the participants would offer their own insights “as a gift to be shared, ready even to sacrifice our own point of view in order to give life to something new.”
“Otherwise, we will end up locking ourselves into dialogues among the deaf, where participants seek to advance their own causes or agendas without listening to others and, above all, without listening to the voice of the Lord,” he said.
Solutions to the problems the Church faces can only be found in God, Pope Francis said, telling participants, “If you do not pay attention to the guide, if you think you are self-sufficient, you may die of hunger or thirst and take others with you.”
He also reflected on the day’s scripture passage that say that “under his wings you will find refuge,” saying wings can be used to lift and to fly, but also to lower and protect, and as such serve as a model of how God interacts with his people.
“Among us, dear brothers and sisters, there are many strong, well-prepared people, capable of rising to the heights with the intense movements of reflection and with brilliant insights. All this is a great advantage to us,” he said.
However, the pope said this must be paired with an ability to “bend down to offer each other a welcoming embrace and a place of refuge.”
“The more we realize that we are surrounded by friends who love, respect and appreciate us, friends who want to listen to what we have to say, the more we will feel free to express ourselves spontaneously and openly,” he said.
This is not just a mere technique for facilitating dialogue in the Church, he said, but rather, “embracing, protecting and caring are in fact part of the very nature of the Church.”
“The Church needs peaceful and open places to be created first of all in our hearts, where each person feels welcomed,” he said.
Francis then pointed to the image of a child, in reference to the day’s Gospel, when Jesus gathered with his disciples and “put a child in the midst of them.”
The disciples, the pope said, had asked Jesus who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and in response he encouraged them “to become small like a child. But not only this, Jesus also adds that by welcoming a child in his name, we welcome him.”
To understand this is essential for the synod, he said, saying participants “must try to be ‘great’ in spirit, in heart, in outlook, because the issues that we must deal with are ‘great’ and delicate, and the situations are broad and universal.”
“It is precisely for this reason that we must not lose sight of the child, whom Jesus continues to place at the center of our meetings and worktables,” he said, saying this is a reminder that “the only way to be worthy of the task entrusted to us is to make ourselves small and to receive one another humbly.”
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