The experience they shared has made the Synod participants aware of the importance of a synodal form of the Church for the proclamation and transmission of the faith. The participation of the young helped to “reawaken” synodality, which is a “constitutive element of the Church… as Saint John Chrysostom says, ‘Church and Synod are synonymous’ – inasmuch as the Church is nothing other than the ‘journeying together’ of God’s flock along the paths of history towards the encounter with Christ the Lord” (Francis, Address for the Commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops, 17 October 2015). Synodality characterizes both the life and the mission of the Church, which is the People of God formed of young and old, men and women of every culture and horizon, and the Body of Christ, in which we are members one of another, beginning with those who are pushed to the margins and trampled upon. In the course of the exchanges and the testimonies, the Synod brought out certain fundamental traits of a synodal style: this is the goal of the conversion to which we are called.
It is in relationships – with Christ, with others, in the community – that faith is handed on. For the sake of mission, too, the Church is called to adopt a relational manner that places emphasis on listening, welcoming, dialogue and common discernment in a process that transforms the lives of those taking part. “A synodal Church is a Church which listens, which realizes that listening ‘is more than simply hearing’. It is a mutual listening in which everyone has something to learn. The faithful people, the college of bishops, the Bishop of Rome: all listening to each other, and all listening to the Holy Spirit, the ‘Spirit of truth’ (Jn 14:17), in order to know what he ‘says to the Churches’ (Rev 2:7)” (Francis, Address for the Commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops, 17 October 2015). In this way the Church presents herself as the “tent of meeting” in which the Ark of the Covenant is preserved (cf. Ex 25): a dynamic Church, in movement, which accompanies while journeying, strengthened by many charisms and ministries.Thus does God make himself present in this world.