September 10, 2024 // Bishop

Prayer Service Being Held Ahead of Synod on Synodality

Kasia Balsbaugh

Before Bishop Rhoades travels back to Rome for the second session of the Synod of Bishops on synodality, members of the diocese want to see him off properly: with prayer.

On Thursday, September 19, there will be an hourlong prayer service at St. Matthew Cathedral in South Bend at 7:30 p.m. to pray for all 364 delegates participating in the synod, particularly Bishop Rhoades. The evening will consist of music, reflections, and silent prayer.

“We want to send off Bishop Rhoades to the synod with the love and prayers of his flock, and to then receive him home again to our diocese,” Allison Beyer, one of the organizers of the event, told Today’s Catholic.

Beyer first became involved in the synod in 2021, when she served as a notetaker for the listening sessions held in parishes in anticipation of the synod.

“I was deeply moved by the experience,” Beyer recalled. “It is my personal mission to create communal opportunities to engage local Catholics in the ongoing synod and create opportunities for synodal formation at the local level.”

Since then, Beyer has participated in prayer and pilgrimage with a local women’s group to intercede for the synod. When she and other women from the group met with Bishop Rhoades to suggest a prayer service open to the faithful of the diocese, he agreed. Now, Beyer is raising awareness of the service.

Organist Karen Schneider-Kirner is organizing music for the evening. She is pulling musicians together from the University of Notre Dame Folk Choir, the St. Matthew Cathedral choir, and parishes across the diocese. Schneider-Kirner said the music will be a mix of traditional hymns, a debut of a setting of the Magnificat that she composed, and Taizé chant, which is a type of repetitive prayer popularized by an ecumenical community in Taizé, France.

One of the Taizé songs for the service is called “Adsumus Sancte Spiritus,” which is particularly meaningful for the occasion. As Schneider-Kirner explained, “Every session of the Second Vatican Council began with the prayer ‘Adsumus Sancte Spiritus,’ the first word of the Latin original meaning, ‘We stand before You, Holy Spirit,’ which has been historically used at councils, synods, and other Church gatherings for hundreds of years.” The version participants will sing at the prayer service was composed specifically for the synod on synodality, which opened with Taizé.

Schneider-Kirner also suggested personally reflecting on Psalm 104 and Isaiah 25:6-9 before the prayer service. The evening will include four brief reflections on the Scripture, given by a laywoman, a religious sister, a pastor, and Bishop Rhoades.

If people want to learn more about the synod, Schneider-Kirner recommended researching it via its official website (synod.va), reading the synodal working document, and praying for the delegates, whether in personal prayer or at the service.

“We hope everyone reserves time in their week to come out and pray with us!” Schneider-Kirner said.

As Beyer said: “I want people to know that they are welcome to come just as they are. The hope is to have a beautiful sacred evening together where we can be united in global prayer together.”