The way
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:6
The most sublime gift that we have received from God, in addition to the invitation to the feast of life, is freedom. Our creator has not only given us a share of his intelligence to discover the truth but has also given us the free will to decide individually when and how to respond to our mission as we pilgrimage on this earth.
To show us the way forward, God sent his own son. In Jesus Christ, God wants to walk with us in this world, to be synodal. By becoming human, God can listen, feel, laugh, cry, learn, search like any of us and, at the same time, give us the example of how to be fully human and how to walk in unity, enjoying our diversity.
As Jesus lived among us, he discovered his own path day by day: “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him” (Luke 2:40). Surely, like every human being, Jesus stumbled several times before learning to walk or when speaking or writing or when learning to use the tools in Joseph’s carpentry workshop and, of course, when learning to make friends, playing with the children of his village.
Jesus became synodal with the cry of a widow who lost her son, with the fear of death that made him sweat blood, with the faith that implored the life of his friend Lazarus, with the shame of being expelled from the synagogue, with the joy of seeing Satan cast out by his disciples, in the joy of sharing the love of his friends who marry or the joy of the humble ones who experienced hope as he entered the great city of Jerusalem.
Jesus continues to become synodal today in everyone who, strengthened by his body and blood in the Eucharist, continues to work to create new structures of fraternity, justice, forgiveness and gratitude at home, at work and in the church.
Jesus continues to be synodal in walking with all those women and men who go around the world with a missionary soul listening to the cries, needs and hopes of people longing for new answers to the questions of science or technology.
Jesus becomes synodal today in convents and monasteries where women and men give away their lives, imploring with a burning heart the conversion of those who live in bitterness, resentment or fear, and receive, without knowing how, new clarity in their minds and hearts to walk with joy from that moment on.
Mary accompanies our synodal path as she did in Pentecost.
The Risen Jesus continues to send his Holy Spirit upon all his church so we can walk with joyful hope, just as he did 2,000 years ago with the apostles. “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, M.Sp.S. is an auxiliary bishop of Seattle, also appointed regional bishop serving the northern region of the archdiocese.