On October 10th, 2021, with a solemn Eucharist celebrated in the Vatican Basilica of St. Peter, the Pope opened the synodal path that will end with the celebration of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops whose theme is precisely “synodality”.
The development of this Synod follows unprecedented forms and phases because it is not going to take place only in the Vatican, but in each particular Church of the five continents and, in the history of this institution, it is the first time that a Synod it is carried out in a decentralized way. The opening of the Synod in the local Churches took place on Sunday, October 17th, 2021.
The synodal process follows a three-year itinerary divided into three phases marked by listening, discernment and consultation. The first stage (October 2021 – April 2022) is addressed to each diocesan church; the second one (September 2022 – March 2023) will be worked out at a continental level, being its purpose to talk about the text of the first Instrumentum laboris; finally, in October 2023, it will take place the third and last phase of the synodal journey and it will involve the universal Church.
In his opening homily, Pope Francis exhorted each ecclesial community to meet, listen and discern guided by the Word, that opens us to discernment and enlightens it. The Pope underlined that the Synod should not be an ecclesial «convention», nor a study meeting, a political congress and not even a parliament, but an event of grace, a healing process directed by the Spirit, that should help people to free themselves from what is worldly and from their closures and repetitive pastoral models and to question themselves about what God wants to tell them at this time and towards which direction He likes to lead them.
Referring to the Gospel of the day, Mk 10, 17-30, Pope Francis highlighted how Jesus helps the rich young man to discern his path of conversion showing him that, for his own good, it is not necessary to add more religious acts, but, on the contrary, to empty himself selling what occupies his heart in order to make room for God. This text lights up also the Synod that the Pope describes «a path of spiritual discernment, of ecclesial discernment, carried out in contact with the Word of God» and necessarily demands from the Christian community to put aside all that binds her to our securities and perhaps to her dreams but that is no longer according to God’s plans for the Church and for the world.
