SYNOD: Re: Building Together – Our Synodal Journey
By Archbishop Anthony J. Ireland
As our Archdiocesan Synod draws closer, our journey is moving into a new and important stage. We are no longer simply talking about synodality. We are beginning the serious work of listening: listening to one another, certainly, and through one another listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit.
During September, formation sessions will prepare facilitators to guide this ministry of listening and discernment. Then, in October and November, regional listening sessions will be held across Tasmania. These gatherings will help us discern more clearly what the Lord is asking of the Church in Tasmania at this time.
The Synod Steering Committee has prepared six questions to guide our reflection. In the first week of September these questions were presented to our priests, who will take them back to their parishes and local communities. I hope that parishioners and our various groups will spend time with them before the regional gatherings.
The questions ask us where Christ is calling us to conversion and where he is asking us to have courage as missionary disciples. They invite us to recognise where the Spirit has already blessed the People of God in Tasmania and where Christ seeks to bring healing on this island. They ask how we might listen more joyfully for the presence of Christ among us and, finally, how the Spirit is drawing us to become ever more one in Christ.
These are not survey questions. Nor are they seeking quick answers. They are prompts for prayerful discernment.
Our Synod has as its theme the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper: “May they be one as we are one” (John 17:22). Our listening, therefore, is not an exercise in collecting opinions. We are seeking a communion which has its source in Jesus Christ.
Pope Leo XIV offers us a beautiful image for this journey in his recent Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. In number 8, he turns to the Book of Nehemiah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the exile.
Jerusalem was wounded. Its walls were broken and its gates burned. Nehemiah did not arrive with a prefabricated solution. He prayed. He looked carefully at what had been damaged. Then he gathered the people and invited them to share the responsibility for rebuilding.
Pope Leo writes that Nehemiah “did not impose solutions from above.” Instead, he brought the families together, entrusted each with part of the work, listened to their concerns and coordinated their efforts. The Holy Father then makes the striking observation that Jerusalem was reborn “not through the initiative of one man, but through the shared responsibility of all.”
That seems to me a wonderful image for our Synod.
Whilst the walls of Jerusalem needed rebuilding, we are not beginning our Synod with the assumption that everything is broken. Our subject is building. So, re. building, one of our questions deliberately asks where the Spirit has already blessed the People of God in Tasmania. There is much for which we should give thanks. There is faithfulness in our parishes, generosity in our schools and agencies, genuine holiness in families and communities, and remarkable service being offered without fanfare.
Yet there are also places where the walls have fallen.
There are wounds which need healing. There are people who feel distant from the Church. There are communities anxious about their future. There are opportunities for mission which require courage rather than nostalgia.
The question is not simply, “What should the Archbishop do?” Nor is it, “What should the priests do?” Pope Leo reminds us that Nehemiah gathered the whole people.
The Pope notes that the rebuilding involved people from across the community. Each had a portion of the wall entrusted to them. Then comes perhaps the most beautiful sentence, as Leo notes: “It is an undertaking with God at the centre, which rebuilds relationships before rebuilding with stones.”
That is what we hope for our Synod.
Before we decide what might change, we must listen for Christ. Before we ask what others should do, each of us should seek the portion of the building the Lord is entrusting to us.
Other dioceses in Australia have found, after their listening processes, that their broad themes became focused into three areas for discernment at the Synod itself. Something similar may emerge here. We should not decide those areas beforehand. They must grow from prayerful listening to the People of God and, through them, to the Holy Spirit.
The walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt stone by stone. Communion is built in much the same way: encounter by encounter, conversation by conversation, heart speaking to heart. And, all in prayer!
Our task now is to listen.
And perhaps, as we listen, we will discover the Christ who is already standing among us, and the blessings of this beautiful island and these beautiful islands, showing each of us the part of the wall that is ours to build.