By Hannah Brockhaus, Catholic News Agency, Oct. 24, 2023
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency’s senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.
Rome Newsroom, Oct 24, 2023 / 15:00 pm – Synod on Synodality delegates in Rome this month are participating in something called “conversation in the Spirit,” a method of communal discernment based on prayer and listening.
“Synodal listening is oriented towards discernment. … We listen to each other, to our faith tradition, and to the signs of the times in order to discern what God is saying to all of us,” says an official handbook for the first, diocesan phase of the yearslong synodal process, which began in 2021 and will conclude in October 2024.
The Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, for the first session of the assembly held this month says: “In its concrete reality conversation in the Spirit can be described as a shared prayer with a view to communal discernment for which participants prepare themselves by personal reflection and meditation.” …