Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
Secretary-General of the Synod of Bishops Cardinal Mario Grech opened a two-day retreat on Monday for participants of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, encouraging synod participants and the Catholic faithful to pray the holy rosary for the duration of the Oct. 2–27 global meeting.
“I would like to invite everyone, in this month of October devoted to Mother Mary, to pray with the holy rosary during the synod so that this prayer may accompany us on the journey of these days,” Grech said. “The rosary is an endless rumination of the word of God.”
“Let us invoke together this month Mother Mary, model of the Church, so that the synodal assembly that begins its journey today may be a renewed Pentecost,” he added.
All 464 voting and nonvoting participants in the year’s synod meeting — including bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople — were invited to attend a retreat at the Vatican in preparation for synod discussions, which will start on Wednesday and include themes of pastoral care and formation, ecclesial structures, and the clarification of Church teachings and doctrine.
The retreat included the communal prayer of lauds led by Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini, OSB; two guided meditations given by Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, spiritual adviser to the synod; time for personal prayer within the walls of the Vatican; and Mass in the evening.
Mary: a model of prayer for the Church
At the beginning of the retreat, Grech reiterated the primary importance of prayer: “We begin our journey with the days of retreat. They are not a preparation for the synod but an integral part of it.”
“In fact, the synod cannot but be a prayer, a liturgy, in which the main actor is not us but the Holy Spirit,” he said to approximately 400 people gathered in the Vatican’s New Synod Hall for a time of prayer and reflection.
Grech gifted each participant with rosary beads from the Holy Father and exhorted those on retreat to turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the “model and image of the Church,” to learn to be a listening Church with a “synodal style.”
Kristina Millare, September 30, 2024