Catholic Outlook Magazine | Ordinary Time| 2023 Issue

Looking Deeper
If you look at the word ‘synodality’ you might notice
the ‘od’ in the middle. This is an important clue.
Every car has an odometer which measures how
far you’ve come and how far until you run out of
petrol. The od comes from the Greek word hodos,
which means a road. There are other words as well.
A period, for example, is a way of dividing up a
journey; it is part of a road. A method is a way of
negotiating a journey.
It is hardly surprising how often the word road
(hodos) appears in the Gospels. It turns up far more
often than words such as ‘miracle’ or ‘creation’.
Jesus spent a lot of time on the road. We meet blind
people by the side of the road; we see a fig tree by
the side of the road; the crowds throw palms on the
road. Jesus tells his friends to greet no one on the
road, the Good Samaritan is on a road and Jesus
tells his disciples some hard truths while they are on
the road. The Magi return home by a different road.
For Jesus, the road was home.
In one of the best-known instances, the story of the
Walk to Emmaus (Luke 24), the climax of the story
occurs when the disciples tell their story of what had
happened on the road. They had asked each other
‘Were not our hearts burning within us as he talked to
us on the road.’
The other part of the word synodality is syn. We
know this part from synthetic and synergy and
synthesise. It means together. Synodality, in other
words, is a journey taken together. It is a shared road.
It describes a Church built around partnership rather
than status, movement rather than inertia, maps
rather than blueprints for grand buildings.
The word synod itself does appear at least once in
scripture. You may recall that in Luke 2, Jesus goes
missing during an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem
for the Passover. Of course, Mary and Joseph are
beside themselves with worry. Interestingly, the word
for their distress is yet another ‘od’ word: it implies
that they experience their pain as a journey, not a
destination. The word synod is used to describe the
community of pilgrims on the road where Mary and
Joseph presume that Jesus is being looked after. It
is usually translated as ‘group of travellers’ or ‘party’
or something like that. But the word is stronger. It
indicates a community sleeping in tents as they
undertake a shared quest where the travellers are
deeply invested in each other.
That is precisely what we mean by synodality.
Michael McGirr is Mission Facilitator at Caritas Australia.
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