Walking in Dialogue
“Two of Jesus’ disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them.” Luke 24: 13-25
3rd Easter Sunday
Two disciples of Jesus couldn’t understand why Jesus died. Like the apostles, they had pinned all their hopes in Him as the Messiah but then the Romans killed Him upon the insistence of the Jewish mob. That ended everything. They had to go back home since there was nothing more to expect. Jesus was dead.
Fortunately, everything didn’t end there as they thought. Jesus rose as He promised He would. Now Jesus was accompanying them to enlighten their confused minds about what really was happening. At first they still couldn’t recognize Jesus because of their frustration. But slowly as Jesus explained the recent events through the scriptures they began to see. And especially when Jesus gave them His body in the Eucharist their eyes were finally opened. They had to go back to the rest and they did.
For the last Synod Pope Francis has chosen “synodality” as Theme. Originally synodality means “common road” with the image of Jesus walking along two disciples on the same road towards Emmaus while explaining the recent events of the Passion.
Pope Francis has been seeing three problems in the Church: it has become elitist – only for the ordained, intellectual and complacent – satisfied with what has always been done. Sometimes the priests have excluded the lay from participation in the church’s mission. Some of the church’s solutions presented to solve world problems are out of touch with what is real. The church has been satisfied with has always been done without effort to seek out what is new.
With the synod the pope wants the Church to become a listening Church, first to the Holy Spirit in prayer, and second to our brothers and sisters in crises around the world. She must move from being aloof to becoming a Church of closeness by her very presence in healing broken hearts with the balm of God.
Pope Francis sees in the end not another Church but a different and renewed one. Thus he urged all to invoke the Holy Spirit with greater fervor and frequency and humbly listen to Him.
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