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As the Diocese of Albany is set to hold its second round of synod listening sessions next month, the focus will be on our mission as disciples of Christ. 

“It goes back to the Great Commission that Jesus gave when he was about to ascend to heaven. He said go and tell everyone about me, and tell them that I want to be in relationship with them. I want to be their friend just like I have been your friend here in my years of ministry on earth. I want that for everyone. I want them to experience what you have experienced, my love, my mercy, my compassion and the new life that you can have by living as my disciple,” said David Amico, diocesan director for the Office for Discipleship Formation. 

“We heard a few weeks ago in the Gospel, they left everything. They left their nets, they left it all and that is what He is calling everyone to do. Ultimately, that’s the mission: how can we do that better? How can we do that more effectively?”

Pope Francis convened the first session of the Synod on Synodality, with the theme “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission,” in Rome last October. Prior to that, the Diocese of Albany, like many around the world, held listening sessions on how the faithful in the Capital Region felt the church, locally and globally, could become more synodal. These reports were summarized and given to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and were presented during the synod.

Ahead of the final session of the synod in Rome this October, dioceses across the U.S. have been asked to hold additional listening sessions in the next few months (see box at r. for the dates and times for the diocesan meetings in March), following a request from the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops.

Bishop Daniel E. Flores, who chairs the USCCB’s committee on doctrine and coordinates the U.S. bishops’ synod process, said last month his team requested “each diocese hold 2-3 listening sessions regarding the guiding questions” posed by the synod secretariat. Those two guiding questions are: “Where have I seen or experienced successes — and distresses — within the Church’s structure(s)/organization/leadership/life that encourage or hinder the mission?” and “How can the structures and organization of the Church help all the baptized to respond to the call to proclaim the Gospel and to live as a community of love and mercy in Christ?”

“(The second set of listening sessions) has a two-prong approach or hope. One is they want to keep the idea of synodality before the people of God and keep the energy and dynamism going,” Amico said. “And secondly, they really want to hear from people to help create the ‘Instrumentum Laboris,’ the working document that will be the guide for the second session in Rome this October.

“It’s important because we have seen the value of it. People, I think, responded very enthusiastically and so we want to nurture that enthusiasm and … they talk about the fact that this is a generational kind of project. It is not something that is going to happen overnight, so unless we keep practicing being a synodal church and taking on this mind-set, it will just fall flat.”

Amico said the Diocese will be asking two questions to those attending the new sessions: Based on my experience, how has the Church encouraged and/or hindered this mission? How can the Church help all the baptized to understand and to participate more fully in this mission? 

Amico added the style of discussion will be different from last year’s listening sessions as they will adopt a “Conversion in the Spirit” format, which allows the Spirit into the discussions with the goal of uniting despite participants’ differences.

“We are going to be intentionally using the methodology — Conversation in the Spirit — it is going to be a very spiritual experience. It is going to be a little different for people, it is not going to be just discussion,” Amico said. “There is a certain format. We begin with scripture, personal reflection and the first round is people in small groups will have a chance to respond to those two questions without comment.

“Then we take time, just five minutes — which will seem like an eternity — for silence and prayer about what they heard. In the second round, everybody gets a chance, again without comment: What resonated? What didn’t resonate with me? What touched my heart? Did I gain an insight? Then the third round is where they dialogue freely but focusing on where do we see commonalities, things that we converge on? What are some differences? Do we have a sense of what the Holy Spirit is saying to us?”

Amico sees these added sessions as particularly useful to the Diocese.

“I think that is important for us here in the Diocese because we are navigating new waters these days and when I think of pastors who are taking on two, three, four parishes, this way of living together as church is going to be very beneficial to them because it’s going to be a way of really listening carefully together with their people and it’s not just listening to the people. The whole point of it is to listen together to the Holy Spirit for the sake of mission,” he said.

“People have gone off on lots of tangents about what the synod is or could do or shouldn’t do. It’s really for the sake of mission and that’s the piece we can’t forget. We have still been charged with mission, the mission of Jesus, and so how do we live that? How is the Spirit calling us to live that right here, right now in the midst of our own circumstances that we find ourselves?”

Each diocese is expected to summarize their listening sessions into a 3-to-5 page document which is to be sent to the USCCB by April 8. The summary written by the USCCB, with suggested input from the diocesan reports, is due to the synod secretariat in May.

OSV News contributed to this report.

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