Synod: Are You Listening?

Synod Are you Listening?

(Views expressed in the following are mine, mine only and as such don’t get stressed if you disagree)

I think I am suffering from Synod fatigue! And there is another 18^th months of it. Like the psalmist of old I cry (O God save me from the control freaks!)

The Synod is just another noise.

The Synod has become a talking shop, desperately seeking a listening ear.

The Synod is most definitely agenda led, with the clamour of voices telling the Holy Spirit what they want.

“What I want for the church, what I dream, what I perceive, what will make me feel comfortable as a member. I don’t like things done like this, rather I want it done like that.

The process of the Synod is like Frank Sinatra playing in people’s heads through the song: My Way

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself then he has naught
Not to say the things that he truly feels
And not the words of someone who kneels
Let the record shows I took all the blows and did it my way.

I did it my way.”

St Paul to the Corinthian’s speaks of another way

(12:31-13:8.) Be ambitious for the higher gifts. And I am going to show you a way that is better than any of them. If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever. Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end.

Sounds like a plan!

I listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and I hear the words: Be faithful, be loving, tell the truth, be ambitious for the higher gifts of faith, hope and love. Be humble and gentle.

I don’t receive a questionnaire from the Holy Spirit saying tick the box you like. There is no definitive box with suggestions for improving what I do as a parish or a priest. Listening just prompts my spirit to quietness, to acceptance, to love.

I am not called to rage against the dying of the light, rather to be guided by the kindly light of Christ, steered to a safe haven, towards the shores of heaven.

Dear Holy Spirit, help me to truly listen, prayerfully discerning Christ, the way, the truth, the life, now and always. Amen