Vicar general backs synodality as model for pastoral councils

Fr Aynsley recalled one parish pastoral council (PPC) being “caught up making plans and drawn into a certain activism. We have busily thought up ideas for the parish and all the things that we should do”.

“These are the meetings I leave feeling overwhelmed,” he wrote in Tui Motu Interislands. “In hindsight, I realise that if we’d taken more time discerning the movement of God in people’s lives, we would have been less inclined to start imagining that things needed to be directed by us.”

But other PPC meetings have left Fr Aynsley “feeling enthused about all that is occurring in the parish and feeling a desire to engage more deeply in the mission of God that we see unfolding”.

“Sometimes, we’d spend half the meeting simply talking about all the things we saw going on in the parish and discussing what different parishioners were doing,” he wrote. “It created a spirit of thankfulness and led us to consider how we can continue to align ourselves with these movements of God’s grace.”

Fr Aynsley wrote that meetings such as the latter one “helped us become aware of our call to serve the parish, not to imagine ourselves as in charge of organising the parish”.

“It is opposite to the top-down approach. These were examples of the PPC being attuned to the diversity of the parish, honouring the variety of ministries, and so [being] able to support one another as we seek to engage more faithfully as disciples of Jesus in the mission of God.”

Fr Aynsley wrote about the notion of synodality providing a theology and an approach to underpin how PPCs function, as well as providing clarity as to a council’s purpose.

“In the end, the synodal vision provides us with a better way of being a parish pastoral council because it elucidates an important truth: the parish is not merely an organisation that we need to organise and manage,” Fr Aynsley said. 

“Our parish is made up of the People of God and it’s God’s Church. If, as a PPC, we genuinely listen to and grow attuned to how the Spirit is active in the lives of those who are baptised, we will see our role as important in supporting and encouraging the parish community as it grows in participation, in communion and in mission.”

FULL STORY

Synodality and Parish Pastoral Councils (By Gerard Aynsley/Tui Motu InterIslands)