Missionary synodality does not merely apply to the universal dimension of the Church. The demand to journey together, bearing a real witness of fraternity in a renewed and more visible community, applies above all to individual communities. It is therefore necessary to reawaken in every local reality the awareness that we are the people of God, responsible for incarnating the Gospel in our different contexts and in all daily situations. This involves stepping outside the logic of delegation, which so greatly conditions pastoral action. We may refer, for example, to catechetical courses in preparation for sacraments, a task that many families delegate entirely to the parish. This mentality has the result that children risk seeing the faith not as a reality that illumines their daily life, but as a collection of ideas and rules belonging to a separate sphere of their existence. Instead the two must journey together: the parish needs the family to help the young to experience the daily realism of the faith; the family conversely needs the ministry of catechists and of the parish structure to offer the children a more organic vision of Christianity, so as to introduce them into the community and open them to broader horizons. So it is not enough to have structures, if authentic relationships are not developed within them; it is actually the quality of these relationships that evangelizes.
TheoFonsAt the sources of the faith