Walking Together with Jesus: A New Way of Being Church
Instrumentum Laboris 2 (for the 2nd Session, October 2024)
Instrumentum Laboris 1 (for the 1st Session, October 2023)
Join us as we heed Pope Francis’ call to become a Synodal Church.
Our community introduced the synod during our 2021 Advent liturgies and we are excited about this next phase of the journey. We invite you to invite your family and friends, especially those who have felt marginalized or excluded from the Church in any way, to join us for 5 listening sessions where we will listen deeply to the Holy Spirit speaking through one another and through the community, the Church – the People of God – as a whole. All the baptized are needed in this important process of journeying together.
In these sessions we will be listening with open hearts and minds, hoping for the inner transformation that will ultimately make a difference in the life of the Church and the world. We recognize that in introducing us to this 2-year period of Synodality, Pope Francis is calling us to a new way of being Church, of walking and listening together. May we exclaim with the disciples on the Emmaus Road, “were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
We will be incorporating these listening sessions into our existing Lectio Divina prayer format and have invited 5 theologians to reflect on the Sunday Gospel text through the lens of Synodality and to share their hopes and dreams for the Church. After their input, we will gather in small groups to listen deeply to what the Holy Spirit is saying to us as we each share our hopes and dreams for the Church and lean into the new that is beginning to emerge from each small group.
We encourage your full participation in each session. While it isn’t necessary to be an expert in Synodality in order to participate, we’ve provided the resources below as reference materials to help orient you to this important process in the life of the Church.
At the conclusion of these 5 listening sessions we will compile feedback to submit to the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
We join Pope Francis in wanting to hear from you. All are welcome, please click on the links below to register for each session you plan on attending:
Young Adult Listening Session Feedback
The summary report submitted to the Archdiocese of Baltimore can be found here.
Resources:
Archdiocese of Baltimore on Synodality
Barbara Reid, OP on Synodality
Key Words for the Synodal Process
A Synod for the World – Jenny Sinclair – The Tablet
Synodality and ecumenism require walking together, say cardinals – Carol Glatz – NCR
The ecumenical dimension of the synodal process
Official Handbook for Listening and Discernment in Local Churches
Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church – International Theological Commission
Process for Facilitating Synodal Consultations
Attitudes for Participating in the Synodal Process