Most of us, I realized as I looked around the room, remember a Church before Vatican II. A pre-Conciliar church.
The room: well-populated, but not overflowing by any means. Maybe 200 of us were gathered there on Saturday morning, at the Archbishop Rigali Center, for a “listening session” in connection with the global Synod on Synodality.
“Church Geeks” may know what I’m talking about here. But it seems like almost nobody else does, not in North America anyway. For a couple of years now, the church in other parts of the world have been doing this same sort of thing – gathering for listening sessions, discussing in earnest what the church does well…and what the church desperately needs to improve.
In the US, though, we’ve largely ignored the invitation. The listening session I attended yesterday (for example) is about three years late. Most Catholic dioceses around the globe were doing their initial synodal gatherings in 2021.
Better late than never, I suppose. And eye-opening, too, to survey yesterday’s modest crowd – and realize that only a dozen or so of those in attendance were born after Vatican II concluded in 1965. If that fact doesn’t underscore the need for the Synod, I’m not sure what would.
We need a new way to be church. Far too many of our post-Conciliar sisters and brothers have voted with their feet in recent decades: they’ve shaken the dust from their feet…and walked away from a church that fails to show them the face of Christ. A church that flails ineptly at dispensing mercy. A church that too often flubs and flounders its chances to turn the world’s gaze toward grace, and the profound mystery of God’s presence.
That’s the dilemma we pre-Conciliar Catholics face today. So, did we find any answers at yesterday’s listening session?
I detected at least the hint of a solution – not yesterday, but this morning – as I reflected on the “procession” gospel passage we hear proclaimed at the beginning of Mass on Palm Sunday. In it, two anonymous disciples are sent ahead to an unnamed village, and given a small job to do. No one seems to understand why, but the pair remains faithful to the task:
…[they] found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. Some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They answered them just as Jesus had told them to…
In just this way, perhaps we pre- (and post-) Conciliar Catholics are being called to do some seemingly insignificant advance work for Jesus today. At times, the temptation may be strong to wonder what’s the point of our efforts. But like Jesus (and his two anonymous disciples), our call is to keep moving forward into Holy Week…into the Passion.
Even if we don’t fully understand the end-game, we cannot pretend that there’s not work to be done.
Notes taken at our long-delayed Synodal Listening Session: Well, at least it’s a start…
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 