‘May they be one’: The gathering power of the Holy Spirit

Pentecost is sometimes called the birthday of the Church. Happy birthday to us! The church born on the first Pentecost was not a comfortable gathering of like-minded people. It was a bewilderingly diverse community drawn from many nations, languages, and backgrounds.

The miracle of Pentecost day was not that everyone suddenly became the same, but that through the Holy Spirit they were able to hear, understand and walk together in Christ.

This remains the challenge set before the Church in every age.

In recent years, Catholics throughout the world have been invited to reflect more deeply on what it means to be a synodal Church — a Church that listens, prays, discerns and journeys together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The Australian Plenary Council in 2022 recommended diocesan synods and assemblies as part of this renewal. More recently, we have heard Pope Leo XIV state clearly that the synodal path begun by Pope Francis is to continue and progress. Throughout the world, bishops recently received a letter signed by four senior Cardinals asking dioceses to engage concretely in a synodal process and to report on its progress by 2028.

Here in Tasmania, after consultation with the Council of Priests, preparations are now underway for an Archdiocesan Synod. A steering committee has been appointed, and a project officer will coordinate the details.

The steering committee confirmed a theme for our synod drawn from the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper:

“May they be one as we are one” (John 17:22).

There is something especially poignant about those words in our island home.

Tasmania is beautiful, but distance is part of our reality. Parishes and communities can be separated by long stretches of road, by geography, by weather and sometimes by isolation itself. Yet the deeper distances in human life are not measured only in kilometres. There can also be distances between generations, between cultures, between hopes and disappointments, and between those strongly connected to the Church and those standing uncertainly at its edges.

Into our island home, our island church, the Lord Jesus speaks his prayer:

“May they be one.”

He prays not for uniformity nor sameness but communion.

At the centre of that prayer is a small but powerful word: as.

“May they be one as we are one.”

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus uses that word to raise the horizon of Christian life.

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

“Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate.”

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The Christian life is never measured by the lowest common denominator. It is measured by the life of God Himself.

This might seem beyond us—unless Christ is risen.

On Easter morning, the women disciples went to the tomb, and they heard the great Easter proclamation: “He is risen as he said.”

The Resurrection confirms that everything said by the Lord is true:  love, mercy, forgiveness, and unity have standards not set in Tasmania nor on the earth but in heaven.

A synod is not simply a meeting or a strategy. At its best, it is a spiritual act of trust in the Holy Spirit, who continues to guide the Church through every age.

As Pentecost reminds us, the Holy Spirit has the power to gather what is scattered, heal what is wounded and lead people forward together in hope.

May we experience this power!

Most Rev. Anthony J. Ireland DD STD
Archbishop of Hobart