The Lay Claretians, on a synodal journey

Since last October, our Church has been embarked on a synodal itinerary, to which the whole People of God has been summoned. Our Pope Francis invites us to reflect on what is our real role within our Church, and how we should articulate with each other from our different realities, vocations, charisms and services, to be truly the mystical body of Christ that St. Paul describes in the first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 12:12-27).

In fidelity to our charism and our vocation, as a Movement we have wanted to participate in a decisive way in this process, in accordance with our commitment to the Church, and with the service we wish to render to her evangelising mission. In fact, one of the principles of our Claretian identity is our option to build a communitarian and participative Church, as is stated in number 27 of our Ideology.

For this reason, from the General Council we have been encouraging all the communities and regions of the Movement to be actively involved in the work that is being developed in their local Church, through their parishes and dioceses. But also, in accordance with our configuration as an international association of lay faithful recognised by the Church, we have also considered it important to reflect at a general level, and to contribute to the Secretariat of the Synod our vision as a Movement from the uniqueness of our charism. To this end, the General Council decided to convene a group of Lay Claretians representative of the social, cultural and generational variety of the Movement, to help us carry out this discernment on behalf of all our communities.

Among the lay people invited to form this group were the representatives elected by each region together with three representatives of the communities without a region -to contribute a reflection from different territorial and cultural perspectives- together with members of previous General Councils -to contribute a historical and global perspective-. All of them were asked to discover the signs of the Spirit that we identify in our experience as an ecclesial movement, reflecting from a Claretian and lay perspective on the two questions posed by the Synodal consultation:

How are we in the Movement living the “journey together” as Church, in our communion, participation and mission?

What steps does the Spirit invite us to take in order to grow in our “walking together” as a Movement, as a Claretian family and as a Synodal Church?

And to share the conclusions of their reflection, they were summoned to a single virtual meeting, which took place last Saturday, February 26th. It was a very enriching and gratifying encounter that allowed us to approach little by little a reality that is common, but that presents many faces and manifests itself in multiple ways. A reality in which we all agreed in recognising our charism as a great gift that we have received from the Spirit to put it at the service of the Church; in valuing our experience of living our faith in community as a great strength and a perfect instrument of ecclesial synodality; and also, in feeling the urgent call of the Spirit to evangelise and persevere tirelessly in the proclamation of the Word of God in the midst of the obstacles and obstacles that today’s world presents to us.

With the contributions shared at the meeting, and those received from the representatives of the non-Spanish-speaking groups – who were invited to send their reflections in writing – the General Council will draw some conclusions by way of synthesis, which will be sent to the Secretariat of the Synod in the Vatican on behalf of the Movement, These will also serve us internally to propose lines of work that will help us to advance in our own synodal journey as a Movement, deepening our communion, participation and mission, collaborating in the renewal of the Church based on our own conversion.
Miguel Ángel Sosa Hernández
General Secretary
Lay Claretians Movement