Peter Costello
Conversations in the Spirit: A Guide to the Synodal Method
Juan A. Guerrero Alaves SJ & Oscar Martin López SJ, with a prologue by Pope Francis, translated by Austen Ivereigh
Messenger Publications, €14.95 /
The cover image of this book in a certain way sums up the idea behind the book as a whole. Through a harsh rocky rugged landscape some five, or is it seven streams, run off the rock into a brimming pool, which looks deep, clear and refreshing. Would indeed that all our conversations could come together in this natural way.
It is the basic method by which the Synodal Church will develop itself in future in response to the world around it.
A method of communal discernment that emphasises active listening, personal reflection, and shared prayer to foster trust”
It commences with an encouraging preface by the late Pope Francis, which has been translated by Austen Ivereigh, the well known Catholic communicator who is now Fellow in Contemporary Church History at Campion Hall, the Jesuit College in Oxford. Fluent in Spanish, as we might have known from his work with the late Pope Francis, the translation of the main text is from his hand.
The publication, which derives from the experiences of the authors in Latin America and in Spain is intended as a sort of field manual for manoeuvres in the continuing debate about the way of the Church in the world today. As it is to appear in several leading languages of the world, it is bound to be a little work of great influence.
It is divided into some seven “moments” or streams – hence my allusion above – with the addition of some five appendices.
“Conversation in the Spirit”, so I learn from another source, can be described as a method of communal discernment that emphasises active listening, personal reflection, and shared prayer to foster trust and understanding.
Encounter
As is only natural this book owes much to the historic practices of the Jesuit order from Loyola onwards. But the contribution of other traditions also, including the early Church, when it was in the first phases of its growth, are made clear, all having a share in developing the final approach.
Which, indeed, should be the essential guide of all kinds of Christian as to how they should walk and talk with others”
This form of encounter and resolution contrasts with the established forms of academic training, which have given us the formal theological language (derived from Greek philosophy) so over familiar to us, but which many of those in the pews find difficulties with.
This theological formalism stands in striking contrast to the kind of language that is to be encountered in the gospels. Jesus speaks as a rabbi, a teacher, but a rabbi who is familiar with all the paths of life, not like the Scribes and Pharisees, able only to converse in standard forms.
Among the appendices there for there can be found a “selection of the texts to help deepen the work of groups,” largely from the gospels rather than the old testament, which will provide models of how Jesus handled his critical conversations with those he encountered, and which, indeed, should be the essential guide of all kinds of Christian as to how they should walk and talk with others. If Christians do not base themselves on the plain words of the gospels, where indeed do they stand?