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Thursday, March 28, 2024

At Pentecost Mass, archbishop formally opens Synod, urges all Catholics to participate

The Pentecost vigil Mass at St. Bonaventure in Bloomington featured charismatic praise and worship, plus a prayer meeting afterward. DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

After two years of preparation in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Archbishop Bernard Hebda officially convoked a local, yearlong Synod, which requires the participation of every parish, he announced May 22 at the beginning of an outdoor Pentecost vigil Mass in Bloomington.

There he also expressed hope for deeper unity in the local Church through the Synod and beyond.

The declaration was made through a formal convocation decree, which outlined steps the local Church has taken since Pentecost 2019 to follow Pope Francis’ call to be a “listening Church,” including the archbishop’s participation in 30 Prayer and Listening Events that drew more than 8,000 participants and 35,000 comments.

The decree also listed the Synod’s three focus areas Archbishop Hebda identified last year: 1) Forming parishes in the service of evangelization; 2) Forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’ love and respond to his call; and 3) Forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young.

“Throughout this next year, every parish and deanery is to participate in the consultation process, discerning together how we can grow in unity and more vigorously proclaim the Gospel, guided by these focus areas,” he said in the decree.

The Synod concludes next Pentecost Weekend, June 3-5, 2022, with an Archdiocesan Synod Assembly.

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In the decree, Archbishop Hebda also called for the constitution of a Preparatory Commission tasked with preparing the Synodal Directory, which will govern the process of the Archdiocesan Synod Assembly. According to the decree, the commission’s members “are to be chosen from amongst the clergy and other faithful who are distinguished by their pastoral prudence and by their professional competence and who, in so far as possible, reflect the various charisms and ministries of the People of God present in this Archdiocese.”

Yen Fasano of the Synod Executive Committee reads the convocation decree during a Mass of the Pentecost vigil May 22 at St. Bonaventure in Bloomington. DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Yen Fasano, a parishioner of St. Anne-St. Joseph Hien in Minneapolis and member of the Synod Executive Committee, read the convocation decree on behalf of the archbishop. Like the vested clergy and many of the Mass’ attendees, she wore red, Pentecost’s liturgical color, which evokes the arrival of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in tongues of fire.

The formality of the decree was a gentle contrast to the relaxed ambience of the 6 p.m. liturgy, celebrated under a blue-and-white striped awning on the lawn of St. Bonaventure. Hundreds attended, spread out over the grass on lawn chairs and blankets, many seeking shade from the hot evening sun. Eight priests concelebrated the Mass with Archbishop Hebda and Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens, including Father Joseph Bambenek, the Synod’s assistant director. Three deacons also assisted at the Mass.

Members of the Twin Cities’ Catholic charismatic communities were especially encouraged to attend the Mass, and a worship band led music. The Mass led directly into a charismatic prayer meeting led by Brother Ken Apuzzo, a member of the Brotherhood of Hope and senior campus minister at the University of Minnesota.

In his homily, Archbishop Hebda recognized that even with a formal decree opening the Synod, the local Church is midway through the Synod process, and he urged all Catholics to participate as it moves forward.

“We can’t lose our focus,” he said. “We ask the Holy Spirit, we beg the Holy Spirit this night, to continue to lead us, so that we might feel his presence, that we might feel the warmth of that fire, that we might see the light of that fire, that we might experience the energy of that fire, and that we might go wherever it is that the Spirit leads us.”

Archbishop Hebda began his homily by reflecting on the Mass’ first Old Testament reading from Genesis about the Tower of Babel. “From the time when I was a child, it was a passage from Scripture that always confused me,” he said, as he wondered why the Lord was so angry with the men building the tower so high. In his first year as pope, Archbishop Hebda observed, Pope Francis often referred to this Scripture passage and offered a Jewish interpretation: that the men of Babel began to value the bricks over the people. And so, God disrupted their language so they couldn’t understand each other.

“We certainly recognize that what happened was that great disunity that we always associate with Babel,” he said. “The Lord’s intention, though, is not disunity. The Lord’s intention is always that we be one.”

“Pentecost is the antidote for Babel,” Archbishop Hebda said, noting that when the Apostles received the Holy Spirit, they preached and everyone understood them, no matter their language. “The Holy Spirit was the great unifier,” he said.

Emerging from the Prayer and Listening Events that were held across the archdiocese from September 2019 to March 2020, “was a plea to the Lord for unity,” Archbishop Hebda said.

“We certainly recognize diversity as a great gift, but we also recognize how important it is that we as a Church would be one,” he said. “That we would represent that unity that God intended from the beginning of time, before Babel. That we would be enlivened by the Holy Spirit that we would be able to witness to the unity that only God can bring. That, my brothers and sisters, is our prayer as we move forward in this Synod.”

As the Synod begins its third and final year, “we pray for that gift of unity, that out of all of the voices in our archdiocese, that we might be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. … It’s the Lord’s desire that we together would be that body of Christ that would give witness to Jesus forever.”

All Catholics — not just the ordained — are priestly by virtue of baptism, and they are called to participate in the work of teaching, sanctifying and leading, he said.

“How important it is that we exercise our priestly ministry, that priesthood of the baptism, by participating in this great opportunity for us to come together as a Synod — to walk together as a priestly people, to pray together that the Spirit would indeed bring life to our bones that have become weary,” a reference to the Mass’ third Old Testament reading from Ezekiel.

“We need our Church to participate in this priestly way, and I call upon all of you to really commit yourself to be involved this fall as we move into this next phase of the Synod, this consultation in small groups in our parishes,” he said. “It’s the way in which we can exercise our priestly ministry. It’s the way in which we are able to call upon the Holy Spirit, to not only put sinew on the bones, but to breathe life into us, as well — so that we might be that Church that Jesus intended from the beginning, that we might be the Church that represents his body, that we might be the Church for which he died and rose.”

The Parish Consultation with Small Groups will be held in parishes this fall. Schedules will vary by parish, but in every parish, a six-week small group series is expected to take place between mid-September and mid-November to focus on the Synod’s three focus areas.

Archbishop Hebda said that he had to “marvel at the work of the Holy Spirit” because Pope Francis announced May 21 his desire for all dioceses around the world to conduct a local synod consultation ahead of a Synod of Bishops planned at the Vatican in 2023 with the theme, “For a synodal church: communion, participation and mission.”

“All over the world, people are going to be doing what we’re doing,” he said.

He added with a smile: “We began it first, though.”

 


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