CONVERSION: The heart of Synodality

Fr Sean Smith writes from Knock Shrine:

"My hope", said Pope Francis, "is that following this Synod, Synodality may endure as a permanent mode of working within the Church, at all levels, permeating the hearts of all, pastors and faithful alike, until it becomes a shared 'ecclesial style'. However, achieving this demands that a change must occur within each of us, a true conversion."

Bishops and priests are the primary agents and animators of Synodality. To implement and sustain Synodality, they need energy, vision, enthusiasm, rejuvenation, fresh insight, daring to dream and to risk, and be creative with new initiatives. Only ongoing conversion will energize them and prevent discouragement and burnout. This article, addressed to the leadership, is my response to four thought-provoking questions on Synodality put to Irish priests and laity:

I. What does God want from the Church in Ireland at this time?

Live the Second Vatican Council's vision for the Ecclesia Semper Reformanda. (The Church always Reforming). Conversion is the one constant call of the prophets in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New. Conversion is not remorse. It is metanoia, turning and facing Jesus. Conversion is a relationship with Jesus and nobody would dare claim that he or she has a full relationship and is fully aligned with Jesus. Nobody fully answers the question, "Who do people say that I am?" There is what Ignatius of Loyola calls, the more, while TS Eliot writes "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." "All relationships" says Karl Rahner, "are unfinished symphonies." John of the Cross puts it like this: "There are depths to be fathomed in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many recesses containing treasures, and no matter how we try to fathom them the end is never reached. Rather, in each recess, we keep on finding here and there new veins of new riches."

There will be no reform," repeats Pope Francis, "without a return to Jesus". "The goal of a new evangelization," writes Pope John Paul, "is a fresh encounter with Christ." Not knowledge about him but an evangelization that is new, he says, in "method, expression and, enthusiasm." Conversion is "putting on Christ." Having the "mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:16). To say with Paul, "I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20).

Witness
People are bone-weary of the rhetoric. They want the reality and the reality is witness. "The Church" wrote Pope Paul VI, "exists to evangelize." To this end, he focused on witness: "Above all the Gospel must be proclaimed by witness….The first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life. Modern people listen more willingly to witnesses than teachers, and if they do listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses….It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the Church will evangelize the world" (Evangelization in the modern world).

2. What is the key message about Christ that we want to convey to as many as possible?

Beyond a shadow of a doubt it is: GOD LOVES US. "The truth of the Christian faith," says Pope Francis, is that "God sent Jesus to tell us how much God loves us. Therefore, truth is a relationship." This is the Kerygma proclaimed in the early Church and, as he says in the Joy of the Gospel, that "must ring out over and over: Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you" (para. 164).

'God loved the world so much, that he sent his only son to be our Saviour' (Jn 3:16). 'See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are' (1 Jn 3:1). 'This is the love I mean, not our love for God, but God's love for us' (1 Jn 4:10-16). 'We have put our faith in God's love for us' he says, (v. 16). Few have. We will when we experience Jesus as a person instead of a personality; when we cease praying to earn and merit God's love; when we take Jesus seriously.

Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, is famous for repeating that only one name counts: "Arid is all food of the soul if it is not sprinkled with this oil; insipid, if it is not seasoned with this salt. What is written has no flavor for me, if I have not read Jesus. Nothing has flavor for me when you discuss or speak; if I have not heard, resound the name of Jesus." "Close your ears, then, if anyone preaches to you without speaking of Jesus Christ" advises Ignatius of Antioch. "As you received Christ Jesus," Paul teaches, "walk in him, rooted and built up in him" (Col 2:6). We will do this well when we experience Jesus' love for us. God made us to be loved and to love in that order. Love is not a feeling but a decision.

Dualism, Pelagianism, Jansenism and Perfectionism prevent us from experiencing Jesus' love. We live as if the Incarnation never happened. God is out there and we are busy working at getting in touch with him. But the truth of the Incarnation is that God took the initiative and became fully human in Jesus. The consequence, which is not well appreciated, is that we become full participators in the divinity. The Church Fathers in the Breviary repeat this over and over again telling us that we are divinised. We do not take the initiative in this divine union - we respond. And we respond best through awareness of our divine status. "O Christian, be aware of your nobility - it is God's own nature that you share," cries out Pope Leo the Great on the Nativity of Jesus.

"Let yourself be loved" is the constant refrain of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. We Irish find this very challenging because of the above 4 isms that pervaded the Irish Church. We are still trying to earn and merit God's love. "Perfect love casts out fear" says John in his first Letter 4:18. Paul assures us in Romans 8:35: "Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ." John of the Cross says that God loves a person in mortal sin with the same love he has for one not in mortal sin. I believe that God, cannot, not love us because God is love.

3. How do we keep that Good News about Jesus Christ to the forefront of our life?

Few have a life-changing experience of God's love. I have no hesitation in saying that this is the first principle of our spiritual life. It's the best kept secret! Let his love overwhelm us and we will keep the Good News about Jesus Christ to the forefront of our life. It's that simple! Cardinal Heenan of Westminster, when asked by Richard Dimbleby what he found most challenging and difficult, surprisingly replied "I find it very difficult and challenging to believe that God loves me"

Ministry in reverse The experience of God's love is the obvious place to begin, and no better reading to ponder than 1 John 4:10-19: "It's not our love for God but God's love for us." I call it 'ministry in reverse' because the focus here is allowing Jesus to minister to us through loving us.

Most of us spend our lives ministering to Jesus and people. Good, but not the best! The best is to experience what Jesus is doing to and through us: It's a profound experience of being touched, moved, and carried by him. It's how God ministered to his people: "You have seen how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself" (Ex 19:4-6). It is similar to the great Augustine's experience of God carrying him: "O beauty so ancient. You were within me and I sought you outside. You breathed fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and do now pant for you: I tasted you, and now hunger and thirst for you: you touched me, and I have burned for your peace. In you I have discovered life" (Feast 28th August).

Growing in Jesus' love sets us on fire with conviction, confidence, bursting energy, and enthusiasm to live and present Synodality. It's the energy and strength that Paul boasts of: "Caritas Christi urget nos" - the love of Christ drives us. Now we witness and are more credible. Writing on the priority of witnessing, Pope Francis teaches, "Today, too, people prefer to listen to witnesses: they 'thirst for authenticity' and call for evangelisers to speak of a God whom they themselves know and are familiar with as if they were seeing him" (The Joy of the Gospel para.150).

When we surrender and allow Jesus to love us, we can say with Paul: "I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me" (Gal2:20). Duc in altum, launch out into the deep, Jesus tells us. And the poet, Robert Frost, encourages us to embrace personal conversion, reform, and renewal: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and it has made all the difference."

4. What can we do better?

Immerse ourselves in Scripture
We are familiar with the warning of St Jerome: "Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." Immerse ourselves in the word of God. We could begin with two excellent online courses in the comfort of our living room. The first is an eight-week overview from London by Mauro Lanicelli at: www.comeandsee.org - The other is a year's presentation, 25 minutes daily, by Fr Mike Schmidt: Bible in a year by Mike Schmidt. Be sure to order The Bible Timeline Chart - a magnificent, detailed, and coloured coordinated outline from Genesis to Revelation.

Response to Jesus' love requires discipline. We could order our day around two half-hour periods of Lectio Divina/Adoration/Meditation. Preached retreats contribute little to conversion. We could do better by replacing them with a five-day guided/directed retreat. There are enough trained spiritual directors; priests and lay, and religious to meet this need.

Immerse ourselves in Church Fathers
They are all in our Breviary. The Word of God was the only book they studied and just note the depth of their spirituality! The Eastern Fathers' spirituality is primarily Christological. It is profoundly relational - an intimate relationship with Christ. They speak from their experience of Christ. They speak from a both-and perspective. They, more than anyone else, repeat over and over that we are divinised. In contrast, Western Spirituality is primarily Theological. It is mainly knowledge about God. It is dualistic, either-or, speculative, and non-relational. Hence Pope John Paul called for the West to breathe with both lungs.

LINK
Book: JESUS - Answer to Evangelising the Irish Church - Fr Sean Smith
ICN Aug 31st, 2022: www.indcatholicnews.com/news/45388