Prayer and praise, small and large group dialogue and voting.
Those will be key elements June 7 as nearly 500 people from across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis gather at Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul for Archdiocesan Synod 2025, the “Be My Witnesses Assembly.”
There are three ways for all the faithful to join Synod members in prayer. The first is a 7-8 p.m. June 6 Holy Hour of Adoration at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. Archbishop Bernard Hebda and Auxiliary Bishops Michael Izen and Kevin Kenney will be there.
The second opportunity is after the daylong assembly at Cretin-Derham Hall, when Synod members and people across the archdiocese are invited to celebrate a 7 p.m. Archdiocesan Pentecost Vigil Mass followed by a prayer service, also at the Cathedral.
“The readings are all aimed at helping us see what’s the work of the Holy Spirit,” Archbishop Hebda said of the vigil Mass. “We’re also going to be doing a classic prayer meeting afterward, invoking the gifts of the Holy Spirit and asking that we be open to those gifts.”
The third way to support the Synod is to pray at any moment of any day, Archbishop Hebda said.
“Just that general prayer, which you can do from your rocking chair or on your front porch, or while you’re riding your mower, you can pray for the Synod, that it would be a great experience in a very concrete way,” the archbishop said.
The assembly at Cretin-Derham Hall will include praise and worship, comments from the bishops and opportunities for assembly members to discuss the various propositions, which can be found online, with videos about each one, at archspm.org/synodpropositions.
