Bishop Nicholas Interview - Transcript

Bishop Nicholas Hudson, auxiliary bishop of Westminster and Synod delegate, was interviewed at our event 'From Rome to Home' by Avril Baigent, the Co-Director of the School for Synodality and a Synod facilitator. They discussed their shared experiences of the Synod in Rome, and what synodality might mean for our Catholic communities at home.

Avril: Hello and welcome to this conversation from Rome to Home I'm Avril Baigent from the School for Synodality, and welcome Bishop Nicholas! Really nice to see you.  

Bishop Nicholas: Thank you very much Avril, it's lovely to see you too.  

Avril: Bishop Nicholas is auxiliary Bishop from Westminster and was a Papal delegate at the Rome Assembly, where I was honored to be a facilitator, and we last saw each other in person at the end of the assembly, which was a really emotional moment - would you like to say a little bit more about what that was like? 

Bishop Nicholas: It really was emotional wasn't it? There was in the very best sense a bit of a feeling of elation right at the end. I think we were quite rightly proud with what we'd produced, it had been a long journey. Some people said to me, is it like going on a long, month-long conference? And I said no it's something much deeper than that it's been more like a pilgrimage actually - right from the word go when we had the opening Mass, with the Holy Father, and I was really pleased to see the lay members of the Synod leading the priests and the Bishops into the into the Basilica. And the Holy Father encouraged all of us to be hopeful, and trusting, and also humble - and those two words I really held on to for the whole time.  

And then there were so many prayerful spiritual moments along the way weren't there? Do you remember there was the mercy vigil, and then there was the ecumenical vigil, when we all gathered with ecumenical brothers and sisters, we all gathered at the place of St Peter's martyrdom. And then we there was also the time on the 7th of October when we were in thought and prayer with people in the Holy land, and we all went over to the other side of town to pray for peace in the world and especially in the Holy Land... all those different moments leading right up to the closing mass as well.   

I'll never forget the experience of the baldachino being revealed - that's the big canopy with those four twisty pillars that many people will have seen in St Peter's or seen photos of from St Peter's, which go above the high altar and is above the tomb of Peter. And then all of us, being behind the Pope looking through, with him, through the baldachino to the image of the Holy Spirit at the far end of the Basilica. And he reminded us, as he often did during the Synod, that the Holy Spirit was the ‘chief protagonist’ of the Synod.  

But that was the religious, but then there were all the practicalities weren't there? The retreat which was led by father Timothy Radcliffe who was soon announced as a Cardinal to-be, to our great joy, and I remember him telling us we really must do everything we can to be good listeners during this Synod. And do you know, that was one of the things that struck me really strongly, when we found our tables and I was delighted to find that I was going to be at one table with the same people for two weeks - I think you [Avril] were sat on the table behind me - and what struck me almost immediately was a) there was the joy at finding one another again after a year of what we shared in 2023 and then b) there was the experience very quickly the sense that we'd matured in our understanding of the Synod...it was if the Synod had matured and we'd all matured. And I think we'd all been thinking a lot about our responsibility, as father Timothy had said, to be listeners and the quality of listening I found extremely moving from the word go really, and the conversations in the spirit. It was as if we'd learned I think some of us had been doing conversations in the spirit in the meantime.  

So the Synod went on, all those weeks,  and we all admitted that after about two and a half three weeks we were getting tired, and the energy did seemed to have dipped a bit... there was still joy and still real commitment... but then it really picked up towards the end didn't it? - As we began to work towards the final document 

Then do you remember all the energy around the amendments? there were 1,300 amendments submitted and that's the measure of how much work people were doing on the document... and then we found ourselves at the end of the process! And then, it’s to go from Rome to home, isn’t it? 

Avril: Absolutely! I think one of my first impressions, because I didn't go last year, was just on that first day when people were coming back together, and people were practically running to see other people they hadn't seen for a year. There was this extraordinary sense of kind of community and love. You'd be sitting at a table talking to somebody and they'd put their hand out and they just grab somebody walking past that they hadn't seen, saying ‘oh my gosh it's so amazing to see you!’  

I hadn't expected that,  I thought people would be weary from what I'd heard the previous year, that people might be a bit cynical or you know they might not want to be there again because - it's a big deal to give up your work for a month and be away! And people were juggling lots of things while they were away but there was there was such a sense of, no matter what your churchmanship or your perspectives, there was such a there was a shared passion for the Gospel and there was a shared passion for the future of the church and that was what really struck me.  

I couldn't agree more! You're reminding me of how much joy there was at people finding each other and you know, a lot of people in the room I'd kind of been texting at different times in the year. Just sometimes to ask about how they were or to share with them something from my own life, and there are other people in the room - sometimes bishops from other countries, where I sense they had a similar approach to synodality as we did - and I'd say to them what are you doing about this or what do you think about that, and how's it going, and it was all about a deepening of communion. 

Avril: I was also struck by how global it was. I mean it's got to be hands down the most global kind of gathering I've ever been in. Just on one of my tables I had people from Syria, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Japan, Canada, England - it was just the most incredibly diverse group of people I think I've ever been with. 

Bishop Nicholas:  I had exactly the same experience you look around your table and you say we're just wonderfully spread aren't we from different continents. I really rejoiced in the presence of the women at my table - we had Nathalie Becquart, XMCJ the Secretary of the Synod and Secretary of the Synod Dicastery. And, you know, all my facilitators throughout the whole of both Synodal assemblies have been women - and rightly so - and extraordinary capable, coming from different disciplines as well - one was University lecturer, one was a professional facilitator. 

One of the things that the Synod calls us calls us to do, is to do everything we can in the local church to maximize the opportunities for women to exercise their role co-responsibly with males in the leadership of the church.  And we saw that writ large. 

Avril: People keep saying to me “what did you do for a month?” So I think we should probably just sort of unpack that a little bit, because we are going to go on to talk about the document a bit more - but like so would you like to just share what on Earth were we doing for a whole month (apart from praying which we did a lot of!) which was beautiful... 

Bishop Nicholas: We were working hard, we always had tasks, we were taking different parts of the document that we'd all received several months before the Synod Assembly which has the very grand Latin title of Instrumentum laboris which of course means the ‘instrument of the work’ so that was that was what we were working through. But what I found was that as soon as you began to listen to one another we would go around the group listening for three minutes or so to everyone's impressions of the particular section of that document that we were considering, and then you'd go around again and people would be speaking in the light of what they'd heard – this is absolutely classic conversation in the Spirit. By the way, one of the things that I've really learned from this long experience of doing Synodality is the conversations in the spirit go a lot deeper if you do them for a long time, and you have several rounds but also do them for several days.. and then the several days becoming several weeks... becoming a month. There's something there that challenges me, and challenges all of us I think, because we can be tempted to have quite short experiences or conversations in the Spirit and they still yield something. I think a lot of us had that experience when we were trying to when we were launching Synodality back in 2021 –2022, and you'd have Parish meetings where you'd go around you'd go around the group and people would contribute, and then you might have a second go but then that would be it. And it might be a standalone meeting, but people said afterwards you know I've never been asked to say what I think about what it means to be member of the church before.  

But let us take one of the learnings from the Assembly in Rome is that we should always be challenging ourselves to say how long should the process of synodality be, that I'm putting in place, in order for us to go deep? 

Avril: But what I really loved was that the participants [of the Synod] were really good as well, and that because you'd all done it for a month the previous year, you knew what you were about, you knew to come and speak for three minutes - speaking for three minutes is a really interesting challenge, because you have to be sharp but it's long enough to say something interesting, and not too long that you lose the will to live.  

I loved the people around my tables they really listen to one another, they could hold conflict, they could hold a disagreement, they would say ‘I don't agree with you on that, but what are you getting at? I'm not entirely sure I'm understanding you here’ and there was a real desire to work together. And they would work together to write, because we were writing proposals all the way through, and if somebody would say ‘I can't sign up to that,’ someone else might say ‘well if we just change the wording a little bit does that help?’ ‘oh that completely changes it right yes’ and so it was this beautiful kind of working together and collaboration, rather than the kind of polarisation that we get. Even in like Parish Council sometimes: ‘Oh I'm not signing up for that’. It was brilliant and I came back thinking this is a good way to be Church, we should be doing these conversations in the Spirit all over the place - trustee meetings, counsellors, priests, Bishops, Parish councils – everywhere! Not every meeting not all the time for every agenda, because you'd go mad, but for things that are hard or complex or need deep, deep listening - t's a good tool. 

Bishop Nicholas: I like the way you just describe the dynamic in your group and I recognised that too, and that was just one of the dynamics. Another dynamic could be that people would say do you know now that I've listened to the five of you on that side of the table, I'm seeing the question we were asking quite differently and what I thought was a problem I'm seeing more as an opportunity, or that sort of talk. And in terms of harnessing this to our Parish life: you know, it's true that we will go so much deeper into our discernment of pastoral priorities for future Parish life and pastoral priorities for evangelisation and so on, if we adopt some of these practices. 

I would also add Lectio Divina as well, and we prayed at the beginning of each session at the Rome assembly, but I think if I wanted to challenge the process I wonder if we should not also have built into it Lectio Divina. I'm finding that it makes all the difference when we do that when we come home from Rome and do it at home. I begin with Lectio Divina and invite Jesus. who is completely present to us in the Word, to come and sit with us at the table under the power of the Holy Spirit, and then move to conversations in the spirit. 

The other thing that we need to factor into our discernment about how we harness Synodality into Parish life, is that not everything lends itself to a Synodal conversation. Some people often laugh as they say  ‘I don't think our discussion of the budget requires us to have a synodal conversation’. I'll always say ‘oh but it might!’ because as we often say in the church ‘a budget is a mission statement’.  

And so it's when you stand back from it and maybe say okay -  we've had the accounts presented, and we've seen what the issues are, but perhaps if we prayed a bit about those issues under the light of Holy Scripture and then had a conversation in the spirit, we might see answers to those issues? If we've got to choose between one priority and another which, classically, I think Synodal discernment helps you choose between and helps identify priorities.  

Avril: I just want to jump in and  just explain Lectio Divina, in case some people haven't heard of it – it's  a way of reading scripture where you would maybe read it two, three times together, and as you're reading it it's very slow ...you're invoking the Holy Spirit you're saying: ‘Holy Spirit where are you speaking to me? What's catching with me?’ And sometimes I'll see a phrase I've never seen before in a piece of scripture. but what's really lovely when you do that with a group is you see a phrase from somebody else that you never saw before and actually the community the Christian Community is created in that sharing of scripture it is absolutely phenomenal. I mean, who new prayer works, right? But you know the use of Lectio Divina at the beginning of our meetings is becoming like almost a standard really and we're just saying to people just try it see what see what you think.  

Avril: What were your experiences, and how do you see some of what we're doing now in your past ministry? 

Bishop Nicholas: We said to ourselves quite often during this Synodal process that countries like ours, England and Wales, and many other countries, are realising that we've been quite Synodal in many ways for quite a long time. It doesn't mean that we haven't still got a lot to learn, and as I reflect on my own experience I realise there have indeed been good experiences of a synodal approach to Church, the kind of approach I'm recognising in this Synodal Journey. I'm thinking of, for instance, quite early on in my priesthood when we were beginning to when we going to harness RCIA to the life of the church - RCIA is the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, which is the Church's way of preparing people who are feeling called by the spirit to inquire into the possibility of becoming a Catholic.  

I was asked by a parish priest to lead a team to organize the RCIA in the parish and he gave me a team which was wonderful wonderfully Synodal and collaborative in spirit of on his part, so it was a team of myself a permanent Deacon, permanent Deacon's wife and a lay man and a lay woman. He sent us off for formation in RCIA straight away, and then we led very conscientiously the RCIA for year after year, with discernment and a sense of sharing responsibilities within our team for the different aspects of walking with these people who are seeking initiation was what we were about.  

And then following that I had eight years experience of being part of a Diocesan catechetical team where, similarly, we were a large group, I was the only priest, and we had religious men and women, and lay men and women who were not members of religious orders, and we were very collaborative in spirit. We shared our work with one another and shared decision making, and we tried to model, in the formation that we gave in parishes, the kind of collaborative Ministry that we were encouraging in parishes.  And discernment was key - discernment was at the heart of what we were about, and so was formation for ourselves, formation that we were doing, so when I stand back from all of that Avri say to myself: ‘gosh that was quite a Synodal experience’. 

Actually what we were modeling was a word that this Synodal journey is teaching us to own and that is ‘co-responsibility’. So what I've just Illustrated there are so many other examples of co-responsibility but those are two very concrete examples of what we've been doing quite a lot of in the church in England and Wales for several years - several decades in fact you might say.  

Avril: I think one of the one of the things as well that I loved was actually learning from some of the other global context so I was very perhaps just surprised that the African Bishops are very proud of the fact that they mandated pastoral councils back in the 1970s, and they have these amazing structures of lay including National Councils which are really interesting. They were saying to me ‘what's all the fuss about Parish councils?’ yet you know in my local area until fairly recently we only had one in six parishes, so you know actually the global church has got something to teach us as well.  

But I see that by way of encouragement and hope, you know? That is perfectly possible within our structures at the moment to have those kind of collaborative structures and be able to work better together. I think Synodality has really given us that moment to kind of press the pause button, and just say why is this sometimes really tricky? Why is it harder than it should be I think that's also fair to recognize that it's not unproblematic, and some of the people on the call this morning will not have had fantastic experiences of synodality. 

Everywhere I go, whenever I'm speaking to an audience, I say ‘who's even heard of this?’ And I'm lucky if about a third of the people will put their hands up. So while we've got a great kind of heritage, and that's fantastic examples that you've just given, we can also see  the road stretching out in front of us ....there's a little way more on the pilgrimage to go. 

Bishop Nicholas: We have solid foundations on which to build and on which I think this synodal process is challenging us quite deeply and quite radically to build. What you say about Parish Pastoral councils in Africa strikes a deep chord, and I was struck that the Asians as well are similarly committed in many of their countries to Parish pastoral councils. It is a fact that Parish Pastoral Councils and other ‘participatory bodies’ as the Final Document [of the Synod] called them – things like deanery pastoral councils as well. If you go to the document you can see a whole list of different kinds of participatory bodies - like Synodal assemblies, Diocesan synods, the whole range. 

It's very true that there has been a resistance in many parts of England and Wales. I'm really grateful for the work that the School for Synodality is doing in encouraging a fresh look at Parish Pastoral councils, I really am impressed by the resource – Reimagining Parish Pastoral Councils. There's something about the succinctness, the brevity, of your resources that I find extraordinary appealing. 

For instance, one can remember the categories [of the ‘Reimagining Parish Pastoral Councils’ resource] quite easily that one looks at the vision, one looks at the members, and under these different categories of was it hands, heart and head – also how to structure things. That's where people who are wondering about starting a Parish Pastoral Council, or wondering how to develop their Parish Council will go, and then also the kind of questions that you ask. 

I think that that sort of approach to deepening the way we organize ourselves in Parish life, to come together, to try and be more Synodal in the way that we reflect on what are the needs for our Parish development, what are the needs for the development of our Parish Community, what's the Holy Spirit calling us to do to be more the body of Christ here in this particular Parish? I think that resources like that are going to be extraordinarily effective in helping people see how we can be more Synodal, and that it's not rocket science!  

One of the things that was said towards the end of the Synod, and I think it was said by Cardinal Hollerich himself, one of the very significant leaders of the whole Synodal process, and it was captured in the document as well, was to say ‘none of us are experts in Synodality, we learn by doing it’.  

I think trying to launch a Parish Pastoral Council in the kind of way that is suggested in the School for Synodality resource is actually a very sound way of beginning, and you'll find that you're doing Synodality in so doing.  

Avril: It's just a good way to be Church. I love in the document, it says this is not about Synodality for Synodality’s sake, it's not about structure for structure's sake, it's for the mission of the church. And if we can have those more open, listening structures we will be more confident to turn outwards, we'll be less worried about our own maintenance, we'll be more encouraged to listen to the voices of our neighbors and the people in need around us. I think it kind of broadens, helps us to lift our eyes above the horizon a bit really. So thank you for that.  

It’s really interesting talking about the document - what for you are the highlights and where are the major challenges coming out of that final document? I have to say it's not the easiest document to read - it's quite a challenge, but there's tons in there, it's so rich- 

Bishop Nicholas: That's one of the challenges of this document, that people do find it a bit hard to read. I've now read it so many times and every time I read it, I find myself seeing things that I hadn't seen there before, but I also find myself thinking how can we help people to read it? And I think one of the ways for anyone to help himself or herself read it is to ask yourself ‘what lens am I reading this through?’ 

There's so many different lenses that you can read it through. You could read it through a lens of evangelization, you could read it through a lens of discernment, you could read it through a lens of discernment, you could read it through a lens of decision-making, you could read it through a lens of communion, you could read it through a lens of charism. Those are just some examples - other lenses like evaluation, transparency, accountability and all those different lenses. I think you help yourself, maybe if you hold a few of those lenses in mind, and then go through the text and mark it, get your own copy, you'll begin to find that you're feeling that the document is a bit your own and that is not as overwhelming as you feared and also the structure.  

We won't go into the structure now, because that's for people actually as part of their formation to analyze, but one of the things I've noticed is that it's in five main sections, and each section begins with a very helpful introduction that really captures the fullness of the whole section that follows. So one way of beginning to read the document is to go to the introductions to each section, and maybe just make some notes either on the text or beside the text, and then you begin to get a feel of the shape of the whole document remembering that the key to the whole document is conversion. 

It's broad in scope, it's quite long and it's in a language which is a little bit... because it's a translation from Italian... can seem a little bit complicated, but it really bears working on. What I think, that the more we look at the document the more it makes me feel that we need to come together in groups and actually read it synodally. That's to say: if we read it in a spirit of seeking formation, and also prayerfully, and also having conversations in the spirit about what we've read. So what you could do possibly is take sections, read them at home and then bring to the conversation in the spirit what touched you most deeply and that could be a very good way. 

Avril: One of the things that we're planning to do actually and we're just setting it up at the moment, is to do a bit of an online book club for the School for Synodality. We're going to do sort of six webinars, get different speakers in each week to have a look at and just help us unpack it, because it is very rich.  I mean one of my favorite sections I think it's paragraphs 12 and 13, it's the introduction to the first main section and it's this beautiful description of the Resurrection appearances. And we use that as a Lectio Divina with our Diocesan Pastoral Council, and it was so rich they were blown away by it. So you can even just take a couple of paragraphs, and just spend some time in prayer reflecting on them. Our Diocesan Pastoral Council is looking at section three, which is all on processes and structures, this weekend and looking at how we might apply it to our Diocese. So you know I think it's helpful to tell people this is a handbook. It's a very kind of rich theological handbook, but it is got a lot of practical detail in there about how to go about doing things. 

What would you think are kind of maybe two or three of the real standout ideas in the document for you? 

Bishop Nicholas:  Evangelisation has come through very strongly for me. You know, evangelisation was not mentioned in that introductory document, the Instrumentum Laboris. I'm so pleased, and I think it's so right, that it then began to seep into the whole Synodal process and is reflected in the final document as well. It harks back actually to the first significant document of this pontificate of Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium where he begins to talk about Synodality - but how many of us noticed? That was 2013 -  but he was laying the groundwork and I feel each time I reread the final document, I begin to think that Synodality was the instrument that the new evangelisation was waiting for. 

Avril: I loved that so many people were named in the document as agents of evangelisation and it's as if it's looking to sort of de-professionalize our sharing of faith with one another. So it says the poor and the and the marginalized are agents of mission because they understand the church in their context, and they understand the deepest desires of the people who live next door to them. The ordinary people living their lives. There's this fantastic description of a parish turned outwards, where it says basically the parish exists to support the mission of the people in their ordinary lives. And that blew my mind when you sit down and you think about it - what would we need to do to our parishes, or with our parishes, in order to make that happen? That we all feel confident to share our faith just living our ordinary lives, that you do not have to be specialists? I'm with you I think the emphasis on mission is beautiful. But it's quite practical as well, has got that sort of - just go and get on with it! Have a go! 

Bishop Nicholas: It’s really got that ethos hasn't it? Not in the least because I think a lot of the people who were actually part of the synodal assembly were practitioners, and you had people who were catechists, people who were teachers, people who were parents, you had you had people who were pastors, and who are all these different people in all the different parts of the world where, normally when they weren't at the Synod Assembly, were looking at how we communicate our faith how we communicate our faith better to ourselves and how we communicate our faith better to other people as well. It is very true, it had a very practical had a very practical atmosphere to it the way it talked about evangelisation and that phrase again, the conviction, that we learn by doing it and it's as true of evangelisation as it is of Synodality.  

Avril: I'm going to give you the challenge of saying what are the next steps then for the Church in England and Wales? People will be in all kinds of different contexts, there might be in a Diocese which has a lot going on, there might be somewhere where there's nothing happening, they might be weary... we got people starting to say ‘gosh Avril, we've been at this now for two or three years,  when do we get done with Synodality?’  I'm saying ‘I’m really sorry, we never get done! That's like being done with family life. This is who we are, this is how we are as Church. So just thinking about that variety of contexts, what do you think some next steps are? 

Bishop Nicholas: There was a Cardinal who said on the last day, and it was a plea that found its way into the final document as well because it was so significant, when he said people will lose interest in Synodality even those who have been engaged thus far if they are not invited to connect with what has been presented in this final document. 

Now there's a challenge to especially to those of us who’ve come ‘home from Rome’ that we do need to keep asking ourselves, and asking the question within our communities, how can we help people to engage with all of this? I'll come back to that in in a second because that is absolutely key. But when we ask what should we be doing as Church there is a whole aspect to the Synodal journey that we've been on in this Assembly, and which is captured in the document, which is that we need to work on developing a spirituality of Synodality, developing Synodal hearts. 

I've said already that one of the keys to reading the whole document is to realize it's all about conversion. It's conversion to Christ in one another, conversion of processes, conversion of relationships, conversion of contexts but what we need to develop is a Synodality of the heart. I think it was no coincidence that the Holy Father, Pope Francis,  produced 2/3 of the way through the through the Synod this absolutely wonderful meditation of on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And it was his way of saying, without needing to spell it out, that it's the Heart of Jesus which needs to be at the heart of Synodality. And the work we need to do ourselves is to ask: how do I conform my heart to the Heart of Jesus? And also how do I open my heart to the synodal vision which has been expressed through this process.  

So there's no simple answer to that, because that's going to be a long journey. One of the ways forward is to come together in Parish groups. I think you will find people in one's parishes who are rather excited of that idea of beginning with the spirituality. Another lens through which to read the whole document - go to the document and say to yourselves ‘what's it telling us about spirituality?’ and then have spiritual conversations about that and the spirit will speak to your hearts. That's all by way of a preparation then for being more practical, I think that the principle practical next step needs to be around formation itself.  

I think that formation is absolutely dominant in the whole of the final document. Formation about all sorts of things, some of which we've mentioned, many other things that we've not mentioned, like there was a very strong plea for formation in our Catholic faith, in the Christian faith. And you know there are all sorts of aspects of formation that are being called for by this Synodal process.  

I think that we respond in the right spirit if we look at ways – discern ways – through conversation in the spirit and Lectio Divina, to ask what would be helpful formation for us in our parish? And part of that would be formation in the document itself formation about the Synod conversations, like you and I are having,  we hope that they help people get a feel for what happened at the Synod.  

Many journalists tried soon after the Synod, in a very helpful way, to grab the principle takeaways of the Synod and it made a very stimulating reading. I think that we shouldn't just leave that to journalists but we should ask as members of the body of Christ ‘what do we see as the principal takeoutsof the Synod?’ And actually draw them up for one another, because it's quite heartwarming and exciting and stimulating to see that. Then I think formation about discernment, formation about Lectio Divina and all sorts of other formation.   

I think as well, what I would make a plea for, is to do all that formation very much in the spirit of the Synod. So, not to fall into us saying ‘oh well if we need formation then we need to get formators to come and explain to us what is there’ but actually it's a “both and” 

I'm delighted that you're getting some people to come for six sessions or so to explain different parts of the Synod and different parts of the final document, but then also for those people to come alongside us in spiritual conversations in the light of Lectio Divina to say ‘what are we learning here, and what's this saying to our particular Parish Community?’ 

So I think that's where I would begin - with the spirituality, and it's beginning with myself and asking myself how I can develop a more spiritual Synodal heart. And then looking for formation in spirituality, looking for formation in Synodality, and then taking it from there.  

Avril:  You know isn't it so funny, because every time somebody asks me this I end up saying very similar things to you, and they look at me as if ‘Is that it? Haven't we been hearing this stuff in years?’ And would say, actually now that we're doing it in our Diocese, we've started using our Starter Kit that we talked about earlier, and we've got about 10 parishes some in clusters and in different formations doing this  - and we are getting the most amazing emails back from people!  

So although this sounds really basic - reflect together. I find myself just constantly saying ‘Come Holy Spirit’ in the middle of a meeting... if I'm thinking ‘I'm not sure what's going on - Come Holy Spirit. I don't I know I've not got the fullness of what I need to listen and engaged properly with this, what is going on’. So actually it's about a culture change....which is a really deep way of how are we, how are we Community together, how are we, how is every single bit of our life impacted by this? It feels to me as if things like parish councils and finance committees got pushed off to one side, so we say well the holy bit is happening with Eucharistic ministers and readers who we will do formation days for,  and then the boring bit is parish councils and finance committee - we have to have them because something awful is going to happen otherwise - but those people don't need any formation or prayer or the Holy Spirit.  

I loved the description in the document of ‘Synodality spiritual renewal and structural reform’ and I think for me the power is in bringing those two things together so that we're bringing spiritual renewal into our structures, and reforming them from that perspective. That's when it gets really exciting! That's when we get these emails back from people saying ‘you would not believe the meeting we had last night’ - you know - ‘you would not believe what is happening in our Parish at the moment’ and it is like going like a rocket! 

So although it sounds really simple, and I'm sorry for people who are kind of looking for a magic wand or a silver bullet or whatever - actually that process of rehumanizing each other, recognizing the Holy Spirit in one another, as we sit and listen, allowing our hearts to be a bit broken by other people's stories - it's so powerful.  

I have started calling Synodality ‘slowing down to speed up’ because it is a slower process for sure, but haven't we spent the last 30 years lamenting over the lack of our young people, without ever perhaps thinking we ought to go and talk to some young people?  Synodality would say whose voices are we not listening to, let's get some young people in the room.  

So I think it's about, you're dead right, it's completely about a conversion. It's about a conversion of who we are as communities and then the joy that comes from that, spreading out into our communities is very powerful.  I want to say to people who have given it a go – maybe they've hit brick walls, maybe it's been really difficult – read the document, have another go, email into the School for Synodality, we're always doing events and things. We'll find you a community of people that you can be with. I would say there's a lot there's a lot of richness here.  

Bishop Nicholas: You put it beautifully, you sum up my experience of the Synod assembly so well in the way you just expressed it, and there's one word you used towards the end which was coming to me very forcibly as I listened to you, and it's the word listen. What's different is that we're learning to listen much more deeply. You mentioned just listening to young people, but in fact we're hearing the call to listen much more deep deeply to young people, to every generation, to people who stand in whatever relationship to the church, and listening to one another and listening to the spirit more deeply.  

I think when people ask ‘what's different?’ -  it’s the quality of listening. You noticed that as soon as you sat down at your table at the Synod Assembly that, having spent a month doing it the year before, we'd learn to listen and say – part of my prayer for those people with whom I shared a table with such joy for so many weeks - is that each one of us and, you know, I challenge myself most deeply first, is continuing to listen and growing in my listening. Because I think that's what that's what Synodality is calling us to, and it's the principle learning that we take from Synodality, and it's something that we really need to hold on.  

Avril: Thank you so much, what a great note to finish on, so just want to say thank you very much to Bishop Nicholas for joining us and wish him all the best carrying on his Synodal journey in the Diocese of Westminster, and all that he's doing, and thank you very much for your time today. 

Bishop Nicholas: You're most welcome, I've thoroughly enjoyed it Avril, thank you.