One of the meditations focussed on the meaning of ‘Authority' and another on 'The Spirit of Truth'.

Authority

There can be no fruitful conversation between us unless we recognize that each of us speaks with authority. We all are baptized into Christ: priest, prophet, and king.

The International Theological Commission on the sensus fidei quotes St John: ‘You have been anointed by the Holy One, and all of you have knowledge', ‘the anointing that you received from [Christ] abides in you, and so you do not need anyone to teach you', ‘his anointing teaches you about all things' (1Jn 2:20, 27).

Many lay people have been astonished during the preparation of this Synod to find that they are listened to for the first time.

They had doubted their own authority and asked, ‘Can I really offer something?' (B.2.53). But it is not just the laity who lack authority.

The whole Church is afflicted by a crisis of authority.

An Asian archbishop complained that he had no authority. He said: ‘The priests are all independent barons, who take no notice of me.'

Many priests too say they lost all authority.

The sexual abuse crisis has discredited us. Read more

The Spirit of Truth

The disciples see the glory of the Lord and the witness of Moses and Elijah. Now they dare to come down the mountain and walk to Jerusalem.

In today's gospel (Luke 9. 51 - 56) we see them on the way. They encounter the Samaritans who oppose them because they are going to Jerusalem.

The immediate reaction of the disciples is the call down fire from heaven and destroy them. Well, they have just seen Elijah and this is what he did to the prophets of Ba'al!

But the Lord rebukes them. They still have not understood the journey on which the Lord is leading them.

During the next three weeks, we may be tempted to call down fire from heaven on those with whom we disagree! Our society is filled with burning rage.

The Lord summons us to banish such destructive urges from our meeting.

This pervasive rage springs from fear, but we need not be afraid.

The Lord has promised the Holy Spirit who will guide us into all truth. On the night before he died, Jesus said, ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.' (John 16. 12 - 13). Read more

• Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, is an English Catholic priest and Dominican friar who served as master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001. These are two of the reflections he shared with those about to attend the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which began last Wednesday.

I am old - white - a Westerner - and a man! I don't know which is worse! All of these aspects of my identity limit my understanding. So I ask for your forgiveness for the inadequacy of my words.

We are all radically incomplete and need each other. Karl Barth, the great Protestant theologian, wrote of the Catholic ‘both/ and.'
For example, Scripture and tradition, faith and works.

He is said to have called it the ‘damned Catholic "And"', ‘das verdammte katholische "Und"'.

So when we listen to each other during the coming weeks and disagree, I pray we shall often say, ‘Yes, and…..' Rather than ‘No'! That is the Synodal way.

Of course, No is also sometimes necessary!

"In the second reading at Mass today, St Paul says to the Philippians: ‘Complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing'. (Philippians 2.2).

We are gathered here because we are not united in heart and mind.

The vast majority of people who have taken part in the synodal process have been surprised by joy. For many, it is the first time that the Church has invited them to speak of their faith and hope.

But some of us are afraid of this journey and of what lies ahead.

Some hope that the Church will be dramatically changed, that we shall take radical decisions, for example about the role of women in the Church. Others are afraid of exactly these same changes and fear that they will only lead to division, even schism.

Some of you would prefer not to be here at all.

A bishop told me that he prayed not to be chosen to come here. His prayer was granted! You may be like the son in today's gospel who at first does not want to go to the vineyard, but he goes!

At crucial moments in the gospels, we always hear these words: ‘Do not be afraid.'

St John tells us ‘Perfect love casts out fear.'

So let us begin by praying that the Lord will free our hearts from fear. For some this is the fear of change and for others the fear that nothing will change.But ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.[1]''

Of course, we all have fears, but Aquinas taught us that courage is refusing to be enslaved by fear. May we always be sensitive to the fears of others, especially those with whom we disagree.

Like Abraham, we leave not knowing where we are going (Hebrews 11.8). But if we free our hearts of fear, it will be wonderful beyond our imagination.

To guide us during this retreat, we shall meditate on the Transfiguration.

This is the retreat Jesus gives to his closest disciples before they embark on the first synod in the life of the Church, when they walk together (syn-hodos) to Jerusalem.

This retreat was needed because they were afraid of this journey they must make together.

Until now they have wandered around the north of Israel. But at Caesarea Philippi, Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ.

Then Jesus invites them to go with him to Jerusalem, where he will suffer, die and be raised from the dead. They cannot accept this. Peter tries to prevent him.

Jesus calls him ‘Satan', ‘enemy'. The little community is paralysed. So Jesus takes them up the mountain. Let us listen to St Mark's account of what happened.

"Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.

"And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

"Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."

"He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

"Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"

"Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus." (9.2 - 8).

This retreat gives them the courage and hope to set off on their journey. It does not always go well.

They immediately fail to free the young lad from the evil spirit. They quarrel about who is the greatest. They misunderstand the Lord. But they are on their way with a fragile hope.

So we too prepare for our synod by going on retreat where, like the disciples, we learn to listen to the Lord.

When we set off in three days' time, we shall often be like those disciples, and misunderstand each other and even quarrel. But the Lord will lead us onwards towards the death and resurrection of the Church.

Let us ask the Lord to give us hope too: the hope that this synod will lead to a renewal of the Church and not division; the hope that we shall draw closer to each other as brothers and sisters.

This is our hope not just for the Catholic Church but for all our baptised brothers and sisters. People talk of an ‘ecumenical winter'. We hope for an ecumenical spring.

We also gather in hope for humanity.

The future looks grim. Ecological catastrophe threatens the destruction of our home. Wildfires and floods have devoured the world this summer. Small islands begin to disappear under the sea.

Millions of people are on the road fleeing from poverty and violence. Hundreds have drowned in the Mediterranean not far from here. Many parents refuse to bring children into a world that appears doomed. In China, young people wear T-shirts saying, ‘We are the last generation'.

Let us gather in hope for humanity, especially hope for the young.

I don't know how many parents we have at the Synod, but thank you for cherishing our future.

After a difficult time in South Sudan, on the frontier with the Congo, I flew back to Britain beside a child who screamed without interruption for eight hours.

I am ashamed to confess that I had murderous thoughts! But what more marvelous priestly ministry than to raise children and seek to open their minds and hearts to the promise of life.

Parents and teachers are ministers of hope. Read more

• Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, is an English Catholic priest and Dominican friar who served as master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001. This is Part 1 of the reflection he shared with those about to attend the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which began yesterday.

But there is another source of tension. Our understandings of the Church as our home sometimes clash. Every living creature needs a home if it is to flourish. Fish need water and birds need nests. Without a home, we cannot live.

Different cultures have different conceptions of home.

The Instrumentum Laboris (IL) tells us that ‘Asia offered the image of the person who takes off his or her shoes to cross the threshold as a sign of the humility with which we prepare to meet God and our neighbour.

Oceania proposed the image of the boat and Africa suggested the image of the Church as the family of God, capable of offering belonging and welcome to all its members in all their variety.' (IL B 1.2).

But all of these images show that we need somewhere in which we are both accepted and challenged.

At home we are affirmed as we are and invited to be more. Home is where we are known, loved and safe but challenged to embark on the adventure of faith.

We need to renew the Church as our common home if we are to speak to a world which is suffering from a crisis of homelessness. We are consuming our little planetary home.

There are more than 350 million migrants on the move, fleeing war and violence. Thousands die crossing seas to try to find a home. None of us can be entirely at home unless they are. Even in wealthy countries, millions sleep on the street. Young people are often unable to afford a home.

Everywhere there is a terrible spiritual homelessness.

Acute individualism, the breakdown of the family, ever deeper inequalities mean that we are afflicted with a tsunami of loneliness. Suicides are rising because without a home, physical and spiritual, one cannot live. To love is to come home to someone.

So what does this scene of the Transfiguration teach us about our home, both in the Church and in our dispossessed world?

Jesus invites his innermost circle of friends to come apart with him and enjoy this intimate moment. They too will be with him in the Garden of Gethsemane.

This is the inner circle of those with whom Jesus is most at home. On the mountain he grants them a vision of his glory. Peter wants to cling to this moment.

‘ "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." '.

He has arrived and wants this intimate moment to endure.

But they hear the voice of the Father. ‘Listen to him!'

They must come down the mountain and walk to Jerusalem, not knowing what awaits them. They will be dispersed and sent to the ends of the earth to be witnesses to our ultimate home, the Kingdom.

So here we see two understandings of home: the inner circle at home with Jesus on the mountain and the summons to our ultimate home, the Kingdom in which all will belong.

Similar different understandings of the Church as home tear us apart today.

For some it is defined by its ancient traditions and devotions, its inherited structures and language, the Church we have grown up with and love. It gives us a clear Christian identity.

For others, the present Church does not seem to be a safe home.

It is experienced as exclusive, marginalising many people, women: the divorced and remarried. For some it is too Western, too Eurocentric. The IL mentions also gay people and people in polygamous marriages.

They long for a renewed Church in which they will feel fully at home, recognized, affirmed and safe.

For some the idea of a universal welcome, in which everyone is accepted regardless of who they are, is felt as destructive of the Church's identity. As in a nineteenth-century English song, ‘If everybody is somebody then nobody is anybody.[1]'

They believe that identity demands boundaries.

But for others, it is the very heart of the Church's identity to be open.

Pope Francis said, ‘The Church is called on to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open ... where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems and to move towards those who feel the need to take up again their path of faith.'[2]

This tension has always been at the heart of our faith, since Abraham left Ur.

The Old Testament holds two things in perpetual tension: the idea of election, God's chosen people, the people with whom God dwells. This is an identity which is cherished.

But also universalism, openness to all the nations, an identity which is yet to be discovered.

Christian identity is both known and unknown, given and to be sought.

St. John says, ‘Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. 'What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.' (1 John 3. 1 - 2).

We know who we are and yet we do not know who we shall be.

For some of us, the Christian identity is above all given, the Church we know and love. For others Christian identity is always provisional, lying ahead as we journey towards the Kingdom in which all walls will fall.

Both are necessary!

If we stress only our identity is given - This is what it means to be Catholic - we risk becoming a sect. If we just stress the adventure towards an identity yet to be discovered, we risk becoming a vague Jesus movement.

But the Church is a sign and sacrament of the unity of all humanity in Christ (LG. 1) in being both. We dwell on the mountain and taste the glory now. But we walk to Jerusalem, that first synod of the Church.

How are we to live this necessary tension? Read more

• Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, is an English Catholic priest and Dominican friar who served as master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001. This is Part 2 of the reflection he shared with those about to attend the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which began yesterday.

But from the beginning, in almost every document of the New Testament, we see the disciples divided, quarrelling, excommunicating each other. We are gathered in this Synod because we too are divided and hope and pray for unity of heart and mind.

This should be our precious witness in a world which is torn apart by conflict and inequality. The Body of Christ should embody that peace which Jesus promised and for which the world longs.

Yesterday I looked at two sources of division: Our conflicting hopes and different visions of the Church as home.

But there is no need for these tensions to tear us apart; We are bearers of a hope beyond hope, and the spacious home of the Kingdom in which the Lord tells us there are ‘many dwelling places' (John 14.1).

Of course not every hope or opinion is legitimate.

But orthodoxy is spacious and heresy is narrow. The Lord leads his sheep out of the small enclosure of the sheepfold into the wide-open pastures of our faith. At Easter, he will lead them out of the small locked room into the unbounded vastness of God, ‘God's plenty[1]'.

So let us listen to him together. But how?

A German bishop was concerned by ‘the biting tone' during their synodal discussions. He said they had been ‘more like a rhetorical exchange of verbal blows" than an orderly debate.'[2]

Of course, orderly rational debates are necessary. As a Dominican, I could never deny the importance of reason! But more is needed if we are to reach beyond our differences.

The sheep trust the voice of the Lord because it is that of a friend. This Synod will be fruitful if it leads us into a deeper friendship with the Lord and with each other.

On the night before he died, Jesus addressed the disciples who were about to betray, deny, and desert him, saying: ‘I call you friends.' (John 15.15).

We are embraced by the healing friendship of God which unlocks the doors of the prisons we create for ourselves.

"The invisible God speaks to men and women as friends" (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, 2). He opened the way into the eternal friendship of the Trinity.

This friendship was offered to his disciples, to tax collectors and prostitutes, to lawyers and foreigners. It was the first taste of the Kingdom.

Both the Old Testament and classical Greece and Rome considered such friendships impossible. Friendship was only between the good.

Friendship with the wicked was considered impossible. As Psalm 26 says, ‘I hate the company of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked' (v23).

The bad do not have friendships since they only collaborate for evil deeds. But our God was always inclined to shocking friendships. He loved Jacob the trickster; and David, the murderer and adulterer; and Solomon the idolater.

Also, friendship was only possible between equals. But grace lifts us up into the divine friendship. Aquinas says solus Deus deificat, ‘only God can make us godlike.'[i]

Today is the Feast of the Guardian Angels, who are signs of the unique friendship that God has for each of us. The Holy Father said on the Feast of the Guardian Angels, ‘No one journeys alone and no one should think that they are alone[3]'.

As we journey, we are each embraced by the divine friendship.

Preaching the gospel is never just communicating information.

It is an act of friendship. A hundred years ago, Vincent McNabb OP said, ‘Love those to whom you preach. If you do not, do not preach.

Preach to yourself.' St Dominic was said to have been loved by all since he loved all. St Catherine of Siena was surrounded by a circle of friends: men and women, lay and religious.

They were known as the Caterinati, the Catherine people. St Martin de Porres is often shown with a cat, a dog, and a mouse eating from the same dish. A good image of religious life!

There were no easy friendships between men and women in the Old Testament. The Kingdom broke in with Jesus surrounded by his friends, men and women.

Even today, many people doubt the possibility of any innocent friendship between men and women. Men fear accusation; women fear male violence; the young fear abuse. We should embody the spacious friendship of God.

So we preach the gospel by friendships that reach across boundaries. God reached across the division between Creator and creature.

What impossible friendships can we make?

• Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, is an English Catholic priest and Dominican friar who served as master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001. This is Part 3 of the reflection he shared with those about to attend the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which began yesterday.

Friendship, with God and each other, is rooted in the joy of being together but we need words.

At Caesarea Philippi, conversation broke down. Jesus had called Peter ‘Satan', enemy.

On the mountain, he still does not know what to say but they begin to listen to him and so the conversation can begin again as they journey to Jerusalem.

On the way, the disciples quarrel, misunderstand Jesus, and eventually desert him. Silence returns. But the Risen Lord appears and gives them words of healing to speak to each other.

We too need healing words that leap cross the boundaries that divide us: the ideological boundaries of left and right; the cultural boundaries that divide one Continent from another, the tensions that sometimes divide men and women.

Shared words are the lifeblood of our Church. We need to find them for the sake of our world in which violence is fueled by humanity's inability to listen. Conversation leads to conversion.

How should conversations begin?

In Genesis after the Fall, there is a terrible silence. The silent communion of Eden has become the silence of shame.

Adam and Eve hide. How can God reach across that chasm? God waits patiently until they have clothed themselves to hide their embarrassment. Now they are ready for the first conversation in the Bible.

The silence is broken with a simple question: ‘Where are you?'

It is not a request for information. It is an invitation to step out into the light and stand visibly before the face of God.

Perhaps this is the first question with which we should break the silences that separate us.

Not: ‘Why do you hold these ridiculous views on liturgy?' Or ‘Why are you a heretic or a patriarchal dinosaur?' or ‘Why are you deaf to me?'

But ‘Where are you?' ‘What are you worried about?'

This is who I am. God invites Adam and Eve to come out of hiding and be seen.

If we too step out into the light and let ourselves be seen as we are, we shall find words for each other.

In the preparation for this Synod, often it has been the clergy who have been most reluctant to step out into the light and share their worries and doubts.

Maybe we are afraid of being seen to be naked. How can we encourage each other not to fear nakedness?

After the Resurrection, the silence of the tomb is again broken with questions.

In John's gospel, ‘Why are you weeping?' In Luke, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?'

When the disciples flee to Emmaus, they are filled with anger and disappointment.

The women claim to have seen the Lord, but they were only women. As today sometimes, women did not seem to count!

The disciples are running away from the community of the Church, like so many people today.

Jesus does not block their way or condemn them.

He asks ‘What are you talking about?' What are the hopes and disappointments that stir in your hearts?

The disciples are speaking angrily. The Greek means literally, ‘What are these words that you are hurling at each other?'

So Jesus invites them to share their anger. They had hoped that Jesus would be the one to redeem Israel, but they were wrong.

He failed. So, he walks with them and opens himself to their anger and fear.

Our world is filled with anger. We speak of the politics of anger. A recent book is called American Rage.

This anger infects our Church too.

A justified anger at the sexual abuse of children. Anger at the position of women in the Church. Anger at those awful conservatives or horrible liberals.

Do we, like Jesus, dare to ask each other: ‘What are you talking about? Why are you angry?' Do we dare to hear the reply?

Sometimes I become fed up with listening to all this anger. I cannot bear to hear any more. But listen I must, as Jesus does, walking to Emmaus.

Many people hope that in this Synod their voice will be heard. They feel ignored and voiceless. They are right. But we will only have a voice if we first listen.

God calls to people by name. Abraham, Abraham; Moses, Samuel. They reply with the beautiful Hebrew word Hinneni, ‘Here I am'.

The foundation of our existence is that God addresses each of us by name, and we hear. Not the Cartesian ‘I think therefore I am' but I hear therefore I am.

We are here to listen to the Lord, and to each other. As they say, we have two ears but only one mouth! Only after listening comes speech.

We listen not just to what people are saying but what they are trying to say. We listen for the unspoken words, the words for which they search.

There is a Sicilian saying: "La miglior parola è quella che non si dice'[1] ‘The best word is the one that is not spoken'.

We listen for how they are right, for their grain of truth, even if what they say is wrong. We listen with hope and not contempt.

We had one rule on the General Council of the Dominican Order. What the brethren said was never nonsense. It may be misinformed, illogical, indeed wrong. But somewhere in their mistaken words is a truth I need to hear.

We are mendicants after the truth. The earliest brethren said of St Dominic that ‘he understood everything in the humility of his intelligence'[2].

Perhaps Religious Orders have something to teach the Church about the art of conversation.

St Benedict teaches us to seek consensus; St Dominic to love debate, St Catherine of Siena to delight in conversation, and St Ignatius of Loyola, the art of discernment. St Philip Neri, the role of laughter.

If we really listen, our ready-made answers will evaporate. We will be silenced and lost for words, as Zechariah was before he burst into song.

If I do not know how to respond to my sister or brother's pain or puzzlement, I must turn to the Lord and ask for words. Then the conversation can begin.

Conversation needs an imaginative leap into the experience of the other person.

To see with their eyes, and hear with their ears. We need to get inside their skin. From what experiences do their words spring? What pain or hope do they carry? What journey are they on?

There was a heated debate on preaching in a Dominican General Chapter over the nature of preaching, always a hot topic for Dominicans!

The document proposed to the Chapter understood preaching as in dialogical: we proclaim our faith by entering into conversation.

But some capitulars strongly disagreed, arguing this verged on relativism.

They said ‘We must dare to preach the truth boldly'. Slowly it became evident that the quarrelling brethren were speaking out of vastly different experiences.

The document had been written by a brother based in Pakistan, where Christianity necessarily finds itself in constant dialogue with Islam.

In Asia, there is no preaching without dialogue.

The brethren who reacted strongly against the document were mainly from the former Soviet Union. For them, the idea of dialogue with those who had imprisoned them made no sense.

To get beyond the disagreement, rational argument was necessary but not enough.

You had to imagine why the other person held his or her view. What experience led them to this view? What wounds do they bear? What is their joy?

This demanded listening with all of one's imagination.

Love is always the triumph of the imagination, as hatred is a failure of the imagination. Hatred is abstract. Love is particular.

In Graham Greene's novel The Power and the Glory, the hero, a poor weak priest, says: ‘When you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination.'

We need to leap across the boundaries not just of left and right, or cultural boundaries, but generational boundaries too.

I have the privilege of living with young Dominicans whose journey of faith is different from mine.

Many religious and priests of my generation grew up in strongly Catholic families. The faith deeply penetrated our everyday lives.

The adventure of the Second Vatican Council was in reaching out to the secular world. French priests went to work in factories. We took off the habit and immersed ourselves in the world.

One angry sister, seeing me wearing my habit, exploded: ‘Why are you still wearing that old thing?'

Today many young people - especially in the West but increasingly everywhere - grow up in a secular world, agnostic or even atheistic.

Their adventure is the discovery of the gospel, the Church and the tradition. They joyfully put on the habit. Our journeys are contrary but not contradictory. Read more

• Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, is an English Catholic priest and Dominican friar who served as master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001. This is the final part of the reflection he shared on Sunday with those about to attend the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which began yesterday.