Cambodian Bishop Urges Asian Synodal Teams to Return Home with Jesus, Together and Joyful

Bishop Henrique Figaredo , Apostolic Prefect of Battambang, Cambodia, urged Asian national synodal teams to return to their communities with a renewed sense of joy, togetherness and confidence in Jesus’ presence as the three-day regional gathering in Bangkok concluded.

Bishop Figaredo presided over Mass on September 4 at St. Michael Chapel at Baan Phu Waan Pastoral Training Center, where members of national synodal teams from across Asia were meeting for the September 1–3 gathering organized by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) Commission for Synodality.

Reflecting on the Gospel image of a wedding feast, Bishop Figaredo described the synodal journey as a journey undertaken with Jesus and with the people whom the Church serves and accompanies.

“We are in the wedding with Jesus,” he said, encouraging participants to approach their mission with joy and a sense of togetherness.

As the participants prepared to return to their respective countries and dioceses, Bishop Figaredo invited them to recognize Jesus as their companion on the journey.

“Jesus is coming with us in our trip home,” he said.

He emphasized that this journey should not be undertaken individually but together with the communities they serve.

“We have to be joyful and we have to do it together, together with the people that we serve, we accompany, that we are making a journey,” he said.

For Bishop Figaredo, the presence of Jesus should become visible in the life of Christian communities. He prayed that participants would clearly experience God’s loving presence so that their communities could become places where people discover reasons for hope and joy.

He described the Church’s communal life as a “big feast” through which Christians can show those who do not yet know Jesus that hope and joy are possible because God is present among them.

“The big feast is the life of our communities,” he said.

The Bishop, who has served for many years among marginalized communities in Cambodia, also connected this vision with his own hopes for the future.

He recalled being asked by a journalist about his dream for the future while serving in a country that has experienced conflict and social challenges.

“My dream is that we can be happy with Jesus and to celebrate, to be in a party, to be happy together,” he recalled answering.

For Bishop Figaredo, the image of a joyful gathering points to a Church in which people are brought together rather than separated by differences.

His message resonated with the broader emphasis of the Bangkok meeting, which brought together bishops, priests, religious and lay leaders involved in national synodal teams from different parts of Asia.

The participants spent three days sharing experiences, reflecting on challenges and exploring ways to strengthen synodality in their dioceses and countries. Their discussions included collaboration, accompaniment, local initiatives and ways of sustaining the synodal process in the Churches of Asia.

Bishop Figaredo’s message offered a simple spiritual focus for the participants as they prepared to carry the experience of the gathering back to their local Churches: Jesus remains with them, the journey is made together, and the life of the Christian community should be marked by joy.

“Let us go home with these three things,” he said: “with Jesus, together and in a joyful way to celebrate.”

For the Asian synodal teams, the message placed the practical work of synodality within a deeper Christian perspective, not simply as a process of meetings and initiatives, but as a shared journey with Christ and with the people entrusted to the Church’s care.