Pope Francis and the Synod office in Rome are inviting the whole Church to become Synodal.
We are invited to journey together, listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the lives of the people we meet.
The whole ‘Synod’ will be a two–year process beginning in every diocese in October 2021 and moving on to a national then international listening exercise.
“For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission”
To get involved and to join the journey we are inviting you to pray. To spend this time discerning what it is the Holy Spirit is saying in your life. We have a discernment guide here.
Discernment is very much about listening and we invite you to have an open heart and open ears as we enter into this process.
Over the coming months the questions and the themes will be unpacked and there will be opportunities for you to speak in your community about what is being revealed to you in pray.
To find out how your prayers, thoughts and dreams for the future of the Church can be fed into our diocesan process contact your local parish priest, your Parish/Partnership representative, your local Catholic school or email the Faith & Mission Team.
Adsumus Sancte Spiritus
Every session of the Second Vatican Council began with the prayer ‘Adsumus Sancte Spiritus’, the first word of the original Latin, meaning, ‘We stand before You, Holy Spirit’, which has been historically used at Councils, Synods and other Church gatherings for hundreds of years, and is attributed to St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 4 April 636). As we embrace this Synodal Process, this prayer invites the Holy Spirit to be at work in us so that we may be a community and a people of grace.
We stand before You, Holy Spirit,
as we gather together in Your name.
With You alone to guide us,
make Yourself at home in our hearts;
Teach us the way we must go
and how we are to pursue it.
We are weak and sinful;
do not let us promote disorder.
Do not let ignorance lead us down the wrong path
nor partiality influence our actions.
Let us find in You our unity
so that we may journey together to eternal life
and not stray from the way of truth
and what is right.
All this we ask of You,
who are at work in every place and time,
in the communion of the Father and the Son,
forever and ever.
Amen.
