The synodal network meets in Assisi. When the end becomes a new beginning

Reflections of DEA SANTONICO on the meeting of the Synodal Network (Assisi 22-23 February 2025)

Assisi 22-23 February: this is the appointment for the assembly "Building the synodal church together"*, Promoted by the synodal network, made up of about thirty basic realities of the Italian Church. More than 160 people from different ecclesial realities have collected the invitation and found themselves at the Citadel, to work together on a contribution for the prophetic phase, which will close the path of the synod of the Italian Church.

Divided into workshops we have reflected on different themes: organization of Christian communities, decision -making processes in the Church, centrality of the word, ecclesial ministries, role of women, presence of LGBT+people, celebratory methods, abuse of power, consciousness and sexual, management of ecclesiastical goods, centrality of the ultimate and latest, religious pluralism, immigrants, relationship with the policy and labor of the state, peace, justice and safeguard of the state. Created, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.

What came out of it can be found in final document sent to the Secretariat of the Italian Synod. Mission accomplished!

The synodal network was born four years ago from an idea of ​​us we are church, so we are grateful to Mauro Castagnaro and Vittorio Bellavite, a great friend who passed away, with the aim of making a contribution to the Italian and universal synod. We did it, starting from May 2021, with the sending of thirteen contributions between documents and letters.

We could therefore close it here. Yes, we could ... but these four years of common journey and above all the Assembly of Assisi have changed something, and our end -of -work plans jump.

The path made together in recent years, between reality that did not know each other closely, made us understand that alone we are not enough and showed that synodality is possible, tiring but beautiful to live.

And then Assisi, the first meeting in presence. The emotion of embracing people who felt close but who had only met online and many others, old and new companions and street companions.

It was demanding but nice to work together in the workshops, to share strong experiences, as happened in the laboratory I participated in the abuses of power, spiritual and sexual. Testimonies of those who have experienced the abuse of reparative therapies in the seminary, of those who at a distance of their ten years in a cloistered monastery and see the system structurally abusive, of those who have been hunted from the seminary because they are gay, of those with difficulty but make it to tell of the sexual abuse suffered by a child, and of spiritual abuses compared to its sexual and gender identity.

And together we discover a God on the side of the abused and abused, he himself abused by the political and religious powers of all time, which in his name have created and create suffering, oppression and death.

"God is sitting and cries" - The words of Maria Ridasiru's prayer, which we have starred at the assembly. And we hear that God is there, with a face of a woman who was rushed by tears, sitting in a circle in the midst of us. Strong the push to break the wall of silence around this drama, to defeat the indifference and loneliness in which the victims and their families are left.

Moments of prayer alternate with moments of celebration. And then the Eucharistic celebration of Sunday that concludes the assembly. Homily shared among many and many.

The song of the Gospel of John, who tells the meeting of Jesus with the Samaritanian. A thought crosses my mind and stops on that bucket, so important to take water from the well and yet left by the woman to run to the city to tell what she had seen and heard, as before her they had done fishermen, leaving the nets on the beach, indispensable for those who lived in fishing.

To follow Jesus we must therefore leave something important, not superfluous.

What am I available to leave to follow Jesus?
What is available to leave my Church to announce the good news in a credible way?

And then the words of Jesus: "This is my body" pronounced all together. Finally that word, "sacrifice", which refers to the image of a violent God, who needs the humiliation, torture and the blood of Jesus finally canceled.

To make justice to the God of Jesus, omnipotent in his mercy, capable of donating freely, which is compromised with sinners and sins before their conversion, without putting it as a condition.

The bread broken by the Orthodox brothers, who shared with us the journey to Assisi, and then passed with the wine of hand in hand to the whole community gathered there.

That gesture of breaking indispensable, because the body of Jesus is not in bread, is in broken bread, as Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Corinthians:

“The Lord Jesus, in the night when he was betrayed, took bread and, after making thank you, broke it and said: this is my body, which is for you; do this in memory of me. "

So when Jesus pronounces the words: "This is my body" does not have a bread in hand, but a broken bread.

I missed the words: "Do this in memory of me", with whom Jesus asks us to break our life with the discarded and discarded, as he did.

A church from below was born in Assisi, who does not want to be another church, but an other church.

It happened. So it can happen.

That it is the beginning of a new contagious path, to be covered all and all together with the sequence of Jesus of Nazareth.

*The Assembly "By building the synodal church together", was promoted by the synodal network to which they adhere: Adista, Emmaus Community Association, Ways of Hope, Italian Female-Lombardy Center, Interconfectional Center for Peace-Cipax, Basic Christian Community , Community of via Germanasca-Turin, coordination of 9 March-Milan, Italian theologian coordination, Constitution, Council and Citizenship-C3dem, Decapoli, women for the Church, Fraternity Arché, the lighthouse, the-Turin sheet, the Gibbo, the Gionata's tent, we are church, we are the change, order of Sorality, Pax Christi, for a different church, bridges to be built -Napoli, Preti workers, pro civitate Christiana, adult adult project LGBT, young Christian project LGBT, 3 painting, travelers.