A few days ago, as the Synod on Synodality was reaching its conclusion in Rome, I spoke with my America colleagues Zac Davis and Colleen Dulle for a joint recording for the “Jesuitical” and “Inside the Vatican” podcasts.
Colleen asked, “Do you feel the Holy Spirit present?” What instantly sprang to mind was an experience I had that day—a day before the close of the synod—when the delegates at my table were joking around: teasing one another, making bets on how many people would be in the hall that afternoon and protesting that they could not eat another of the chocolates I had brought that day, as I had done occasionally for the past few days. “Enough is enough!” thundered one cardinal-elect, laughing.
I told Colleen and Zac how much all this moved me. One year ago, I knew only one person at my table in the Paul VI Audience Hall: a U.S. archbishop, and I did not know him well. But here we all were—people from Fiji, Indonesia, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Serbia, the United States, Liberia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Tanzania—enjoying one another’s company. We were cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and lay men and women. We had very different approaches to many pastoral issues. And while our Masses, liturgies and daily prayers were central to our experience, our roundtable conversations important and our coffee break conversations invaluable, it was this “down time” talk at the table that most signaled the presence of the Holy Spirit to me. “Joy,” as the saying attributed to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., goes—“is the most infallible sign of the Holy Spirit.”
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With thanks to the America Magazine and James Martin, S.J., where this article originally appeared.
