In the flurry of world events, the launch of the Jubilee Year, the death of Pope Francis, the election of Pope Leo XIV, the Synod on Synodality for many may now feel forgotten. The Final Document was published quickly, less than four weeks after the conclusion of the Synod and not much seems to have come as a result from this universal gathering.

“Did the Synod on Synodality achieve anything?” Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe poses this question in his most recent publication, Surprised by Hope, Further Meditations on Synodality.

Last week I zoomed in to the US to listen to the Cardinal reflect on his experience of the Synod in his presentation titled, The Synod: Hope for a Disintegrating World or Just Another Document?

Radcliffe reflects, “Measuring its success by visible results would be to miss its true purpose. Instead, it began a process, more radically transformative than we can imagine, founded on encounter with the Lord and with our brothers and sisters.”

At its heart, synodality is not a strategy, it is a way of being. It is how the early Christians described themselves followers of “the Way” (Acts 9:2). The Synod was not about achieving consensus through debate, but about opening ourselves to the Spirit through communion, participation, and mission. “We gathered in synod so that together we could walk ‘the Way,” Radcliffe said.

Our world is marked by polarisation, loneliness, and growing distrust. Radcliffe said, “We’ve lost the art of talking to people we disagree with. On dating sites, I will admit that I’ve never used one, the first question, apparently is always: “How do you vote?” It seems unimaginable that you might love somebody who voted on the other side.” Too often, we reduce each other to categories: “liberal” or “conservative,” “traditionalist” or “progressive.” But the Synod invites us beyond these labels, beyond these “sterile battles,” as Radcliffe calls them. “We sought for ways to assent to the Lord’s summons in words that are enriched by the encounter of North and South, East and West.”

This global encounter, both human and divine, is at the heart of synodality. It is not about winning arguments or controlling outcomes. It is about being together listening, praying, and discerning as one people. Through the Synod, old barriers began to fall, titles faded, conversations deepened. Tensions, especially between different regions, softened into understanding and friendships grew.

The Synod was a reminder that the Church is not a finished project but a living body. It is “just at the beginning of finding fresh words for today’s thirsty people,” Radcliffe says. These are not words dictated from above, but ones forged in the shared experiences of all the baptised, lay and ordained, women and men, from every continent. “A question that puzzled both assemblies of the synod,” he notes, “was how, as women and men, ordained and lay, are both equal and different.” Grappling with such questions in a spirit of communion is precisely the work of synodality.

Some might say, “Nothing really happened” but Radcliffe challenges that notion. The Synod was an event “profoundly transformative”. Much of its fruit, like the mustard seed, will grow unseen for a while. “Most of us were never aware of the transformation while it was happening,” he admitted. “I certainly wasn’t until the second session was almost over.”

That is the nature of grace. It unfolds in silence, in patience and in relationships. The invitation to synodality is not an abstract one, it is deeply concrete. Synodality offers a new horizon of hope. It begins wherever people come together in the name of Christ, willing to listen, to learn, and to walk alongside one another. We are being invited to be the Church of Christ in a new way: more listening, more loving, more unified in our diversity.