A Synodal Church is a listening Church, and the whole point of Synodality is mission, said Archbishop Mark Coleridge in the fifth and final Jubilee Webinar hosted by the SVD Australia Province.

Archbishop Coleridge, who is the Archbishop Emeritus of the Archdiocese of Brisbane and an accomplished Biblical scholar, spoke on the theme: ‘Witnessing to the Light: From Everywhere for Everyone – from a Synodal Perspective’.

Beginning with the opening lines of the Book of Genesis, he traced the roots of synodality and Christian witness right through to the post-resurrection encounters between Jesus and the disciples and the spreading of the Gospel in the Acts of the Apostles, noting that Acts remains unfinished because the sharing of the Gospel is never complete.

“Acts has to be finished in Brisbane. It has to be finished in Jakarta. It has to be finished in Rome. It has to be finished in Hanoi, wherever. So how many possible endings of Luke-Acts are there? Infinite. In that sense, the Society of the Divine Word is all about providing an ending. Not THE ending, but AN ending to the Acts of the Apostles because the ending goes on and on and on.”

Archbishop Coleridge said that Luke’s Gospel should be read as a school of witness.

“Because the whole of the third gospel is about equipping disciples to be the kinds of witnesses that Luke will go on to describe in the Acts of the Apostles,” he said.

“What is required to be not just a disciple but a witness? That's the question at the heart of the third gospel. And having answered that question, Luke then goes on to recount the mission in the Acts of the Apostles.”

Archbishop Coleridge said that a witness is someone who's heard something or seen something or both.

“Now, for Luke in the Gospel, you have to be a witness to be properly equipped and empowered. You need to see not something, but someone, the risen Lord, and you need to listen to His voice, because only He can tell you the truth of what you see.”

This type of witness was encapsulated in the story of the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, where they encounter the Risen Lord, and as they listen to him, their hearts begin to burn within them. When the encounter is over, their eyes have been opened and they cannot help but rush to the other disciples to share the good news.

“So, they come together with burning hearts, and they simply say to each other, ‘We have seen the Lord’. Now that is the oldest and the simplest Creed that Christianity knows: ‘We have seen the Lord’. Mary Magdalene says it, and the other disciples go on to say it with her, she who is the apostle of the apostles.

“To be a witness, then, is, is to say, ‘We have seen the Lord’. We have the open eye. And we have the open eye because we have listened to the Lord. Now, that word ‘listening’ I underline, because it's at the very heart of what we call synodality.”

The Archbishop said that “the whole point and purpose of synodality is mission”.

“So again, the question today that we face is, what is required for a genuine and powerful mission?

“It’s about witness, seeing the Lord, hearing the Lord, and it's about the light.”

Going back to the beginnings of the Book of Genesis, Archbishop Coleridge said that the first sound heard in the Bible is breathing, after which, “The Divine breath hits the divine vocal cords and out comes one word, ‘light’, and there was light.

“So, you are dealing with a Word that brings light from darkness, fullness from emptiness, order from chaos, that's what the Word does.

“Being missionaries of the Divine Word, that's what you're committed to, to go into the darkness, into the emptiness, into the chaos, fearlessly, because you know that precisely there God will say ‘light’ and there will be light.

“So, light comes from the Word of God, and if we don't hear that Word, I'm not sure how we can be servants of light. But the light isn't just disembodied light. The light is the risen Christ.”

Archbishop Coleridge said that the last cry of the Christian Bible is the Spirit of the Bride, saying ‘Come, Lord Jesus’.

“The Spirit, the breath, has passed into the Church, and now the Church says the Word that God said in the beginning. God said light, and the Church says Jesus, because it's the same Word. He is the light. So that's the one we witness to, not some thing, not some message, not some philosophy or ethics or ideology, or whatever political program. We witness to someone. Christianity is an encounter.”

He said this same listening to the Word of God which we see in the Bible and which is central to witnessing to the light, is also central to understanding synodality.

In a 2015 talk on synodality given by Pope Francis, “the first word he used to describe a synodal church was ‘listening’ at every level and in every direction”.

“It all starts with the ear. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, they had to listen to Jesus, first deep listening, and then their eyes were opened. So, what does it mean to you in real terms, to speak of a Church that doesn't just pronounce or declare but listens?”

Archbishop Coleridge said that synodality calls us to be not only a listening Church but a journeying Church.

“A journey is a move from one location to another. So, it's a Church that's on the move, on a journey, not a perfect society. We're on the move and we're on the move together,” he said.

He said the SVD Jubilee theme, “Witnessing to the Light: From Everywhere for Everyone” spoke to the interconnectedness of God with people and all of creation, as well as people’s interconnectedness with one another, across all cultures and places.

“That's the interconnectedness, the endless interconnectedness. We have to discover that more and more in a world that is so disconnected. There's the darkness in which the light has to shine.

“So, to be missionary is to be counter cultural, in the sense that in a polarised and fractured world, to be on the road together”

Archbishop Coleridge commended the Divine Word Missionaries for 150 years of counter cultural missionary activity, saying their ability to take culture seriously while not idolising culture and their living out of synodality and mission makes their contribution particularly valuable in the Church at this time.

“I praise God for the extraordinary story and gift of the Divine Word Missionaries and the Sisters of the Holy Spirit. Every blessing as you celebrate the Jubilee,” he said.

PHOTOS

TOP RIGHT: Archbishop Mark Coleridge speaking during the webinar.

MIDDLE LEFT: The webinar attracted participants from around Australia and the world.

BOTTOM RIGHT VIDEO: Watch the video on our YouTube channel here.