The Alliance of Catholic Marriage Organisations was launched at the World Meeting of Families in 2018 out of a desire to be united their service to the Church and commiments to couples. This collaborative approach of listening and discerning what the Holy Spirit is guiding them to do has developed in to modelling a 'synodal way of working.' Reflecting the couples its serves the focus is on relationships not structures.
Marriage Care: How can we become a Synodal Church In Mission?
Over the last two years a small group within Marriage Care undertook a reflection on marriage and the couple relationship in a synodal way. The fruits of that discernment shared with the Bishops of England and Wales can be found here.
Synodality is not a word: it is a reality lying at the heart of married love. Synodality, described as a way of journeying together, of living out our faith, calls for speaking and listening to one another. These qualities are very much the charisms of married life, as understanding rather than agreement fosters the relationship.
If we do not take the time to understand one another, to recognise the other person’s feelings, then we tend to get fixated on issues and our opinions. Synodality in married life means discerning the path ahead together, which requires the ability to listen with the ear of the heart. To be open and receptive to our spouse, to be attentive to the feelings and the meaning behind the words is essential.
In the retreat prior to the Second Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome, Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP urged participants above all to be good listeners. Echoing St Paul – that “faith is in the first reborn of listening” (Romans 10, 7) - he suggested we should listen in order not so much to reply as to learn. Listening with care is an art that we keep on developing until the end of life.
Accompanying and ‘active listening’ have been central to Marriage Care’s ministry of marriage preparation and relationship counselling since its beginning. Founded in this diocese, with the Archbishop of Westminster as its president, I sit on the Board of Trustees as his nominee.
Marriage Care as a movement, having contributed to the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales National Synthesis Document (June 2022), has continued to reflect more deeply on the vocation of marriage based on our experience of accompanying couples since its inception in 1946.
Mirroring the Synod on Synodality, a small group of volunteer members, staff, and trustees of the organization (myself included) undertook a process of reflection over the last two years on marriage and the couple relationship in a synodal way. In our deliberations, we noticed that of all the sacraments, marriage hardly figured in the synodal documents, yet apart from the sacraments of Christian Initiation, marriage is likely to be the sacrament lived by most adult church members.
Our synodal journey mirrored the relationship skill set of married love: listening, prayer, reflection and discerning what leads us towards or away from God. It has been a process of deeper understanding and the fruits of those reflections offered as a gift to the Church for further discernment, as we continue on the journey of becoming a Synodal Church.
This contribution to Synodality was shared with the Bishops of England & Wales, as well as Avril Baigent at the School for Synodality and with Prof. Thomas Knieps and his team at The International Academy for Marital Spirituality (INTAMS) based at Leuven. I am delighted to say that INTAMS have published “How Can We Be a Synodal Church in Mission? in the latest edition of their journal Marriage, Families & Spirituality.
