In May 2021, it was announced that Pope Francis wanted the Church to engage in a series of consultations involving all baptised persons, beginning at the local level, to listen and discern what the Holy Spirit wants in the life of the Church.

This process of listening and consultation has been going on for the past two years and will reach its culmination in October this year in Rome where the first session shall be held. The second and concluding session will be held in October of next year. The theme for the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is: For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission.

As a baptised person and member of the Church, I accepted this informal invitation to participate with gladness and an open heart. I have been going through various literature to try and understand why Pope Francis felt the need for calling a synod on synodality. I even followed an online course on the theology and practise of synodality, which was very enriching and inspiring.

The General Secretariat of the Synod, when commenting about the synod, emphasised that “the Synod is not an event but a process in which the whole People of God is called to walk together toward what the Holy Spirit helps it to discern as being the Lord’s will for his Church”.

The main protagonist in this process of discernment is the Holy Spirit. No wonder that Pope Francis, while addressing the Union of Major Superiors of Italy, in April, affirmed: “The synodal path is not a parliament, the synodal path is not a collection of opinions. The synodal path is to listen to life under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who is the protagonist of the Synod.”

Unfortunately, though, some of us seem to have the wrong approach to the way the synod is being conducted. Allowing ourselves to be discerned by the Holy Spirit, who works in every individual, implies that we should divest ourselves of our own personal opinions and prejudices.

The editorial of EWTN’s National Catholic Register of February 17, entitled Stopping the Spirit of the Synod Before it Starts, reported that participants in the European Continental Assembly of the Synod on Synodality held in Prague on February 6 deplored the disruptive vision of synodality that was being promoted by activists, the media and even some clerical figures, which was not consistent with the sense of the faithful and authentic Church teaching.

These activists are promoting their own agenda rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to enlighten us with the way forward. They seem not to realise that the aim of the synod is not to focus on specific topics related to Church doctrine and principles but on synodality.

During the Easter season, we are reminded of the work of the Holy Spirit in the early days of the Church. Unless we accept this reality – that the Holy Spirit is actively working in all that happens to us as baptised persons – no amount of gatherings and synods would be able to bring about the desired revival in the life of the Church.

This is the challenge of the Church today – to build a new institutional model of the Church- Ray Azzopardi

It is pertinent to refer to what Jesus tells Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader, in the Gospel of St John: “Unless you are born again you can never get into the Kingdom of God. Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Men can only reproduce human life but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven.”

As baptised persons and forming part of the people of God we need to be tuned to the Holy Spirit to be able to discern what he wants from us. This can only come about if we are born anew, not from flesh and blood but from the Spirit.

The late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his writings affirms: “Reforms (in the Church) will definitely not come from forums or synods, though these have their legitimacy, sometimes even their necessity. Reforms will come from convincing personalities whom we call saints.”

Synodality is all about listening to the Spirit. This is what discernment is all about. When referring to discernment the pontiff states that it “follows from the promise Jesus made to his disciples that, after he was gone, the Spirit ‘will guide you into all the truth’”.

We wouldn’t be able to read the signs of the times correctly were we only to see things with our human eyes and reason with our minds alone. We need to remain alert and open to the new things of the Spirit that are only recognised with our eyes of faith.

Pope Francis shows us what needs to be done if we want to build a synodal Church. He states: “We need a respectful, mutual listening, free of ideology and predetermined agendas. The aim is not to reach agreement by means of a contest between opposing positions but to journey together to seek God’s will, allowing differences to harmonise. Most important of all is the synodal spirit: to meet each other with respect and trust, to believe in our shared unity and to receive the new thing that the Spirit wishes to reveal to us.”

This is the challenge of the Church today – to build a new institutional model of the Church – a synodal Church where all baptised persons are participants in the discernment process that would lead to consensus.

Ray Azzopardi is a former headmaster.