Synod on the Family Questions

Here are the questions that the Bishops would like us to consider in preparation for the Synod on the Family taking place later this year.  The family is where we learn to love and to hate, to heal and to forgive.  These questions are meant to gain the insight from those who have firsthand experience with asking for and using the grace that God provides.  Our responses are meant to help formulate a renewed outreach to those starting out, those fighting the good fight and for those who relationships have been broken.  The Bishop will correlate our responses and the Canadian Bishop will use our input with their discussions with the world’s Bishops. 

                There will be a gathering of the North Okanagan Deanery Parishes to help us work through these questions and I am hoping that you will take the time to consider how we can help each other to find our way with the light of Christ.  If you wish to write directly to the Bishop you submit your response to the Chancery office.

                The questions are in three sections and follow the SEE, JUDGE, ACT model.  Answer as many questions as you feel able.

A PDF is attached if you would like to print the questions.

 

Questions for: Synod on the Family

1. Identifying the Reality:

During the extraordinary Synod in 2014, there was an effort to better determine the reality of families today and to identify the challenges the Church must deal with when accompanying families along their journey of life.

 

A.   What is your experience of how marriage and family life is being lived out today?

 

Positive Signs…

 

Challenges…

2. Evaluating the Reality:

The Synod clearly opted for a pastoral approach that accents the positive: accompaniment, mercy, and the goodness of the Good News.  It thus echoes the call of Pope Francis to all involved in the Church when it invites them to a pastoral conversion.

 

A.   What aspect of the Church’s teaching on marriage and family life sustain and support you? How does the grace of the sacrament sustain married couples throughout their life together?

 

 

B.   In our pastoral activity, what are our best practices in our efforts towards:

 

i)             Supporting and strengthening families?

 

ii)           Fostering the “Desire to form a family” planted in the heart of each person?

 

iii)          Pastorally accompanying couples in the initial years?

 

iv)          Mobilizing families to minister to families?

 

v)            Caring for wounded families so that they experience the Father’s mercy?

3. Paths of Action:

Synods attempt not only to deepen the thought of the Church on particular points of doctrine and practice, but also to propose concrete paths of action and engagement.

 

A.   How can people be helped to understand that no one is beyond the mercy of God?  How can this truth be expressed in the Church’s pastoral activity towards the divorced & remarried?

 

B.   For those who have not yet arrived at a full understanding of the gift of Christ’s love (expressed in Christian Marriage), how can the faithful express a friendly attitude and offer trustworthy guidance without failing to proclaim the demands of the Gospel?

 

C.   How can a familial Spirituality be developed?  What would it look like? And how can families become places of new life in Christ?

 

D.   How can we transmit the Church’s teaching on marriage, family and sexuality as truly good news for men and women today?