Thank you to all who participated in the ongoing synod workshops, Going Deeper: The Lord’s Call

The workshops were designed to include pastors and other clergy, parish pastoral councils, other advisory councils and ministry leaders, and parishioners, Synod on Synodality teams, and more – all were welcome!

The purpose of the gatherings was to engage participants in prayer, faith sharing, and discernment on the first priority Synod theme in the synthesis report from the Archdiocese of Newark. Given the richness of the entire report with Six major themes, we felt it was important to focus on number one priority – Welcome, Hospitality, and Outreach.

In these workshops participants reflected on how the Lord calls them personally and as a parish community. It was a time to reflect on how the parish reaches out to welcome all people, and recognize who is not there. They began conversations about what kind of prayer, reflection, discernment, and steps are necessary to reach out to who are not participating and plan ways to invite them. A planning resource in English and Spanish was explained and distributed to assist parishes and other groups in creating a welcoming plan. The planning resource is being prepared in other languages.

All of the material will be placed on the Synod webpage so that parish leaders may use the workshop format to engage more people in the discernment and planning process on the local level.

If you were not able to attend the Spring Sessions, we will schedule more for the Fall along with “check-in” meetings to see how the planning resource is being used and what further assistance may be needed.

All synod reports and links are listed below:

Synod Reports

See RCAN.org for additional languages: Polish, Portuguese, Chinese, French, Korean

USCCB – United States:

USCCB and CCCB (Canada) Continental Report:

Vatican Report – Instrumentum Laboris (Working Document) for Synod on Synodality
Session one, October 2023

Blessings as we continue,

Walking Together as a Church,
Listening to the Holy Spirit,
Discerning the Call
and Reaching Out as Missionary Disciples!

The Synod Team