Later this month, the Archdiocese of Detroit will be hosting “Synod 16,” which is, in the words of the newly named Archbishop Michael J. Byrnes, Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron’s effort to “reboot the archdiocese.” The synod will focus on evangelization and on helping individuals, families, parish communities, schools and other Catholic institutions to be missionary disciples. There will be meetings and discussions of various clergy, religious and laity who will be representing all of us at the synod, after which, “Archbishop Vigneron will prayerfully consider the recommendations and promulgate those which he feels will most help us become joyful, missionary disciples of Christ” (www.aod.org). The Synod is guaranteed to be a moment of great grace and renewal for our archdiocese because holy Mother Church promises us that any time a synod occurs, the Holy Spirit Himself will be present.

The timing of the synod is surely providential. There seems to be much darkness and fear in our world today. And yet, in the midst of all that, God chooses to come among us with His hope, and He will do so in a particular way for us through this synod; the fact that we are promised an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our archdiocese is truly cause for great joy and hope. The Risen Christ, who has conquered all sin and death, who is Himself our hope, will send among us, as among the first disciples, His Spirit of truth and love. Hope involves, as one of my professors recently taught us, “looking toward the future” with a “confidence in the providence of the living God.” Since we have confidence that the Holy Spirit will be actively in our midst, and especially in the midst of the synod participants, we are able to find hope in seeing this work and its timing within the beautiful providence of our God.

It also seems fitting that the synod coincides with the date Pope Francis has set as the end, the culmination, of the Year of Mercy. We see the Lord’s mercy in His sending of the Holy Spirit to be present among us. It is the Holy Spirit who leads us to recognize and turn away from our sins so that we can turn back to the Father and to Christ, who is “the face of the Father’s mercy” (Misericordiae Vultus, 1).

We concretely encounter our reason for hope when we receive the Father’s mercy. The ultimate moment of the mercy of God occurred when Christ died and rose from the dead to save us from our sins. All of history finds its climax and its meaning in the actual moment in time when the Son of God, God Himself, became one of us and offered up for us this ultimate act of love for our salvation. Our world has been forever changed by this saving sacrificial mercy of our God. Nothing and no one will ever be the same again, because death and sin no longer have the last word. Christ has definitively won the victory for us; we know that He has already conquered all in the world that is not from Him. And as Christians, we know that we also have the victory in Him, since we have died and risen with Him in our baptism and seek to live this daily in our own lives through the practice of the virtues. Thus, as Christians, we must be truly a people not of fear or discouragement, but of hope and joy.

Christ is alive here among us, and He wants to draw us to Himself and to lead us to go out to others to bring them also to Him. Indeed, a renewal in this missionary endeavor is the reason for our upcoming synod. Let us rejoice in the Lord’s desire to fill us with His love, mercy and hope and to send us out to share Him with others. May we be filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit as we find our hope in the presence of the living Lord with us, particularly as we prayerfully prepare for Him to come to us powerfully in Synod 16.

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Sr. Mary Martha Becnel is a member of the Ann Arbor-based Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.