Michael Mahoney, Johannesburg
For some time, I have been praying for a particular outcome to emerge from the upcoming Synod on the Family.
I have my own aspirations (as I expect many have) in terms of what might constitute a favourable outcome. However, that is not where my particular prayer focus lies.
The Catholic Link of June 14 advised: “Parishes need to listen. Parish priests need to listen, parish councils need to listen and parishioners need to listen to one another.”
The whole issue — highly complex — is intrinsically polarised, and it does seem to me that we, as the Church, have fallen into the old trap of “the binary choice”. The question hanging in the air seems to be “Who is going to win?” Is it going to be the conservatives/traditionalists or the liberals/progressives?
Jesus has much to teach us about how to address binary questions. They were constantly thrown in his face, such as: Stone the woman or not? Give to Caesar or not? Welcome sinners or obey the clear injunction of Psalm 1?
Jesus’ response was never to seek a compromise. He did not attempt to please all (which pleases nobody) in responding to these binary questions.
What Jesus did was to challenge his accusers — and also sincere people who were confused by genuine dilemmas — to look at each issue through a “third window”.
He did this frequently by challenging the assumptions which lay behind the binary questions, and that he was obligated to choose one of the two choices.
Jesus had the wisdom to approach each issue from a different perspective. He brought God’s insight to bear on resolution of the issue.
Accordingly, my particular prayer focus for this synod is that the Holy Spirit will grace Pope Francis and the synod Fathers with “the mind of Christ”, a “third window”.
There is ample encouragement from the scriptures that this is feasible (such as 1 Cor 2:16 & Jn 15:15; Phil 2:5; 1 Pt 4:1; Col 3:1-2), that God is more than willing to provide such wisdom.
If the perception after the synod is that one faction has “won” and another has “lost”, we will all have lost, irrespective of the outcome.
I encourage others to pray along the same lines.
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