Search
The Trinity and October's Synod
-
Stewardship Corner, June 4, 2023
Happy Trinity Sunday!
Brothers and sisters, rejoice.
Mend your ways, encourage one another,
agree with one another, live in peace,
and the God of love and peace will be with you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with all of you.
The second letter of St Paul to the Church in Corinth 13: 11, 13
Paul had preached his gospel in Corinth, convinced them of his understanding of the meaning of Jesus Christ, and left town only to have some other early Christian preacher come by and convince some of a different interpretation of what had happened in Jerusalem some fifty years earlier. Don’t you just hate it when you think you’ve won an argument, leave the room and have somebody else convince the room of a contrary opinion? Arrrgh!
He warns them that he is coming back and he will bring witnesses to attest to his gospel, and they should be ready!
But he ends with rejoice, mend your ways, come to agreement, live in peace.
We live at a time in the Church when we will need Paul’s advice. The churches in the United States and in Canada have issued the North American Final Document for the Continental Stage of the 2021-2024 Synod, available here.
The five priorities that the North American Synod wants discussed in Rome in October:
1. Integration of synodal consultation in the local Churches. This would include formation both in synodality and in the spirituality of discernment.
2. The challenge of welcoming those who feel excluded from participation in the life of the Church in a manner that is authentic and faithful to the Gospel and the Catholic faith.
3. Co-responsibility. A plea for renewed consideration of the mission of all the baptized, with specific attention given to particular vocations.
4. Addressing the unity and communion of the Church in the midst of various kinds of polarization and division. Some polarizations arise within the Church, whereas others originate in the wider society and are transposed into the Church.
5. A Church that goes out to the peripheries
Rejoice! Mend your ways! Come to agreement! Live in peace! Amen!