I wonder if any of you have some of the same questions I do about everything that's happening in our Church today? The Synod on Synodality has ended with its Final Document, now the official magisterial teaching of the Church. (My crystal ball that predicted we'd have to wait for an Apostolic Exhortation clearly needs a trip to the shop!) Right before the end of the Synod, Pope Francis released an encyclical entitled Dilexit Nos, Latin for "He Loved Us". Many suggest the release of the letter before the end of the Synod signaled that we are to read the Final Document and this letter in tandem. And then, as if that were not enough, the Pope announced the Jubilee Year of Hope and kicked it off on Christmas Eve.
Are these three unrelated happenings? Are just the Synod's Final Document and the encyclical related? Is the Jubilee Year of Hope some sort of distraction from the work of shifting the church's culture to be synodal? How are we to understand all of this?
Since I know that Pope Francis does not lead chaotically or randomly, I first looked to the USCCB to help me understand how to embrace all three of these at the same time. Alas, I did not find the kind of connected, coherent explanation I felt sure is present, so then I waited for my Bishop to help us see how to embrace and be formed by each item. Again, as of this writing, I've not seen a coherent connection come from him either. So, I decided to think about this myself, starting from the premise that the very fact that these three things occurred in one three-month time period is not accidental.
Here's what I have discovered as I read, thought and prayed about each individually, asking for the Spirit to give me understanding as to how to see them. The clue to understanding came from Dr. Brene Brown, researcher from the University of Texas, and her twenty years of research on human emotions. She discovered that hope is NOT an emotion. It is a deliberate cognitive process, made up of three elements:
Goals, tied to a big idea.
Pathways to reach the goal that come from the context, the people and the resources available. There are many pathways and changing them is what allows for progress toward the goal.
Agency: those involved in the process know they have something significant to contribute to the pathway.
So, becoming a synodal church is the goal, and the Final Document, Dilext Nos, and the Jubilee Year of Hope are pathways to becoming more synodal. The big idea to which all of this is connected is to operationalize the teachings of Vatican II. Our agency, our confidence that we have something meaningful to contribute to this comes from the Holy Spirit, head of the Church, dwelling within and among us, the baptized. This is what gives credence to the Pope's declaration that "hope does not disappoint!" It cannot when the People of God journey together to become more synodal by being pilgrims of hope, led by the Spirit.
So friends, the three are intimately connected for each is a pathway leading toward becoming the Church that brings Christ's presence into the struggles of our age. The Final Document talks a lot about synodality requiring conversion, formation, and changes in the way we've always done things. It has concrete actions to be implemented and also calls for the institutional Church in each of its cultural contexts to figure out which elements to implement using what approaches.
Dilexit Nos, especially the first 45 paragraphs, provide a heart-warming, lyrical, imaginative and deeply spiritual foundation for the Church on the pilgrim journey toward synodality. Remembering the foundational axion expressed by Sr. Nathalie Becquart, "There is no synodality without spirituality," the encylical is a masterful contribution to a synodal spirituality. Imagine our Church's impact on the world if its systems and structures as well as its individual members were all motivated by the same heart that motivated Jesus: a heart beating with God's desire, God's design and God's creative capability. Jesus' sacred heart beats for the salvation of the world, and so the Church's heart must beat for that as well. We begin now to organize ourselves to be agents of hope...first. The universal Church becomes the heatbeat of Jesus Christ in every corner, turned outward to heal, feed, nourish, listen, accompany, advocate, protect and proclaim God-is-with-us!
So the Pope has called for this Jubilee Year to be all about hope...the Church being a hope-bearer to a hope-starved world. To the extent that we embrace this call, we journey together toward being a synodal Church...a Church of missionary disciples who know how to bring hope by setting concrete goals, finding and funding the pathways to achieve it, and animating the Body of Christ, imbued with the Spirit, to journey together.
So friends, figure out how you will restore hope, repent and so remove the barriers to God's love for you and the world, and rejoice in the great gift of salvation, given to us by Jesus! Restore, repent, rejoice....the Jubilee Year of Hope is the way the Pope wants us all to begin the journey toward becoming synodal. Some of us will also undertake or continue the implementations called for in the Final Document. But all of us, ALL of us, are to become the heart of Jesus beating amidst a broken world!
That's how the three are connected! I knew they must be. I hope you now see it as well, and so will get on the #synodjourney as a pilgrim of hope!