Secretary-General of the Synod of Bishops Cardinal Mario Grech opened a two-day retreat on Monday for participants of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, encouraging synod participants and the Catholic faithful to pray the holy rosary for the duration of the Oct. 2–27 global meeting.

“I would like to invite everyone, in this month of October devoted to Mother Mary, to pray with the holy rosary during the synod so that this prayer may accompany us on the journey of these days,” Grech said. “The rosary is an endless rumination of the word of God.”

“Let us invoke together this month Mother Mary, model of the Church, so that the synodal assembly that begins its journey today may be a renewed Pentecost,” he added.

All 464 voting and nonvoting participants in the year’s synod meeting — including bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople — were invited to attend a retreat at the Vatican in preparation for synod discussions, which will start on Wednesday and include themes of pastoral care and formation, ecclesial structures, and the clarification of Church teachings and doctrine.

The retreat included the communal prayer of lauds led by Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini, OSB; two guided meditations given by Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, spiritual adviser to the synod; time for personal prayer within the walls of the Vatican; and Mass in the evening.    

Mary: a model of prayer for the Church

At the beginning of the retreat, Grech reiterated the primary importance of prayer: “We begin our journey with the days of retreat. They are not a preparation for the synod but an integral part of it.”

“In fact, the synod cannot but be a prayer, a liturgy, in which the main actor is not us but the Holy Spirit,” he said to approximately 400 people gathered in the Vatican’s New Synod Hall for a time of prayer and reflection.

Grech gifted each participant with rosary beads from the Holy Father and exhorted those on retreat to turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the “model and image of the Church,” to learn to be a listening Church with a “synodal style.”

“Mary is for us today a model of prayer as we live these intense days of the synodal assembly,” Grech said.

“Mary is also a synodal woman because with her life she teaches us that the Church — as emerges from the teaching and theological reflection of Benedict XVI — is not the work of our hands but the work of God.”

Radcliffe to retreatants: ‘Breathe deeply’ of the Holy Spirit

During his morning meditations, Radcliffe said the “challenge of the synod is for us to help each other to breathe deeply the rejuvenating Holy Spirit who makes us alive, young, in God.” 

“Let us give each other breathing space. The oxygen of the breath. The oxygen of the Holy Spirit,” Radcliffe said to his listeners.

“This indestructible peace does not mean that we live in perfect harmony. We are gathered in this assembly because we do not,” he said. “But no discord can destroy our peace in Christ, for we are one in him.” 

Reflecting on the four Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, Radcliffe said the disciples, who received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, “share in [Jesus’] risen life” and are “ready to be sent out to preach.”

“The mission of the synodal Church calls us to be like Mary Magdalene, the beloved disciple [John], and Peter — ‘searchers’ for the risen Lord,” he said. “We, too, must be close to the ‘searchers’ of our time, but we shall only become preachers of the Resurrection if we are alive in God.”

The Oct. 2–27 meeting to be held in the Vatican with Pope Francis will close the discernment phase of the Synod on Synodality. The conclusions of both the 2023 and 2024 global sessions — as accepted and approved by the pope — are then expected to be implemented in all local Churches with the purpose of creating a listening and more participative Catholic Church worldwide.

This article was originally published on Catholic News Agency.