There’s Always Next Year

There’s a Paul Simon song called “Train in the Distance,” with a line that goes like this:  The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains.

That pretty much sums up the message and the mission of Jesus: The world is a mess, getting worse by the day. (The church, as you may have noticed, is a mess too.) But the Gospel breaks into that mess and—powerfully, urgently—offers another path. As Jesus announces at the start of his ministry, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news” (Mark 1: 15).  Or, as Joni Mitchell sings, “We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” Here’s how the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it:

God, in creating [humans] in [God’s] own image, has written upon [their] heart the desire to see [God] . . .  [and] never ceases to draw [humans] to himself because only in God will [they] find and live the fullness of truth and happiness for which they never stop searching. 

That longing for God, “woven indelibly into our hearts,” sends us on a path through the chaos and back to the garden, looking for a place where life, just maybe, could be better. Catholics from around the world, of course, have been on a synodal path for a couple of years. Because the Gospel works best (or maybe only) in community, we’ve been “journeying together” in parish halls, coffee shops, and diocesan meeting rooms. Finally, last month, a few hundred Catholics, chosen as synod delegates, journeyed to the Vatican to meet with one another and share what they’d learned along the way. For the first time ever, some of those Catholics were women. They’d learned quite a lot and they weren’t afraid to share it. After all, the church has treated them poorly for a few thousand years. Those women were there to seek change, especially the full inclusion of women in the ministry of the Catholic Church.

My favorite definition of the Catholic Church is James Joyce’s: Here comes everybody. It may lack precision, but for me, it expresses the scope of what the church is meant to be: The people of God. We’re a ragtag bunch:  Jesus told the Scribes and Pharisees, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Or, as Pope Francis said a few thousand years later:

The image of the church I like is that of the holy, faithful people of God . . . Belonging to a people has a strong theological value. In the history of salvation, God has saved a people. There is no full identity without belonging to a people. No one is saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.

In other words, the church—and the Gospel—are all about a community where we seek God together. And that community includes women and all those on the margins.

I wasn’t a synod delegate, of course. But I went to Rome as a member of the Women’s Ordination Conference, where I got a glimpse of what it may have been like inside the synod hall. I attended several sessions of the Spirit Unbounded conference, held a stone’s throw from the Vatican. We listened to delegates talk about their experience at the synod and share their hopes for the future of the church. Their words alone were inspiring.

But even more inspiring: Breaking up into small groups—just as the delegates did in Paul VI Hall—and sharing our own experience of Church and our own dreams for the future. Listening to one another with love and respect, and validating one another’s cares and concerns, was affirming (and life-changing, too). This was a true experience of church—a conversation among seekers (or, as James Joyce said, among “everyone”) looking for God.

The Vatican’s final synod report may have been a disappointment. But we all knew from the beginning that the Catholic Church moves slowly, plodding through the centuries with a weird aversion to change. Still, there’s so much reason to hope. The genie is out of the bottle; the toothpaste is out of the tube. Women are at the Vatican and they’re not leaving. We are the church of “everyone,” after all, and the Gospel gives us an optimism that’s woven into our hearts and our brains. 

Plus, there’s another synod in October 2024. As a Mets fan, I can say with conviction, There’s always next year.