The Sydney Synod has come and gone, but Sr Anastasia Reeves OP, from the Parish Renewal Team (PRT) within the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation, believes the real work has only just begun.
“The Synod will only be fruitful if we embrace it and live it,” she says.
That conviction is exactly why the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation’s Parish Renewal Conference, on 18 July at the Liverpool Catholic Club, is shaping up to be one of the most timely and significant Catholic gatherings in Sydney this year.
What the Synod revealed
Few were better placed to share what emerged from the Synod than Sr Anastasia, who served on the Synod’s working party and emceed the event.
What the room revealed was telling: a deep, widespread hunger for the Eucharist and an equally sobering confrontation with the scale of Catholic disengagement.
“While we have record numbers coming to the faith, at the same time, approximately 90 per cent of those who are already initiated as Catholics are not part of the community, are not experiencing the transformation that comes with knowing God, who is love, and his community,” she says.
The numbers are challenging. While there are many seekers coming through the doors, nine out of ten of their fellow Catholics are inactive, content, it seems, to let faith become a spectator sport.
“If we get complacent about those who are coming in the door,” Sr Anastasia warns, “what’s going to happen is they’re going to join the 90 per cent who are no longer part of the community.
“We need to be working on evangelisation with an holistic approach, as well as building our community.”
She believes that while the Synod surfaced the longings, the Parish Renewal Conference, which she is helping to organise, can help our communities actively respond to those longings by offering practical tools, real inspiration, and renewed purpose.
Ask Sr Anastasia what the Synod also confirmed and she answers with characteristic directness: “A deep, widespread longing for prayer especially focussed on the Eucharist.”
“Our people want their communities to understand the Eucharist, to understand the liturgy better,” she explains.
“Even during the Synod, we had many regular parishioners in the cathedral crypt interceding for the synod before the Blessed Sacrament. These faithful prayer warriors were right there with us and reflect exactly what the Synod has called for.”
One of the conference’s keynote addresses will focus on the Eucharist as the wellspring of parish renewal, a theme that resonates powerfully heading towards the International Eucharistic Congress, Eucharist28, in just over two years’ time.
“We really want people to understand why the Eucharist, Jesus himself, is the source of all renewal,” Sr Anastasia says. “Ongoing, lifelong renewal, until kingdom come.”
Delivering the keynote address will be Sr Susanna Edmunds OP, a fellow Dominican and the dean of studies at the Seminary of the Good Shepherd.
“She has beautiful insights into what the Eucharist really means,” Sr Anastasia says.
“The tradition reminds us that the Eucharist is a memorial and more: it’s a sacrifice, and Jesus is really present; we experience what Christ did for us.
“Sometimes as Catholics we forget why we’re doing what we’re doing, that actually, the Lord of all creation loves us, and he’s drawing us into friendship with him, and then sending us back out to share Jesus’ love with others.”
Attendees will also celebrate Mass together with Bishop Umbers, an experience Sr Anastasia says will itself be a highlight and a central part of the day.
Equipping the faithful
If the Eucharist is the source of renewal, then sharing that renewal with others is the mission.
And it’s here that the Synod sent perhaps its most urgent signal calling for more training in evangelisation for our clergy and lay faithful.
Enter Marcel LeJeune, Catholic evangelist, author, and the conference’s headline international speaker.
With a background forged in university campus ministry in the United States, where a campus ministry functions as a full parish, LeJeune’s record of bringing hundreds of people into or back to the Catholic faith is remarkable enough.
More remarkable still is what happened when he moved on.
“Because Marcel’s work wasn’t about him, the people who came behind him have been able to continue it,” Sr Anastasia says.
“That parish is growing and growing. There are more and more people coming to faith, which is such a beautiful testimony for us to hear and learn from.”
You don’t need permission
One of the most galvanising messages to emerge from this year’s Synod and one Sr Anastasia hopes the conference will amplify is deceptively simple: you don’t need to wait.
“We have heard the desires of the synod. There will be some official decisions flowing from the Synod which will require our attention and support – absolutely – but we can heed the synod’s wisdom right now,” she says.
“We are part of the church, those of us regulars in the pews, and what we do matters and ultimately transforms our parishes, for good or otherwise.
“Come along. Learn more. It’s really going to help you to bring faith and transformation to many beautiful people in your own families and communities who are looking for happiness.”
The Parish Renewal Conference takes place on Saturday, 18 July at the Liverpool Catholic Club. For more information or to register go to: https://gomakedisciples.org.au/prc26/
