According to the Jesuit consultor to the Synod General Secretariat, the methodology for the October Synod contains “some variations” from past synods. For instance, “Conversation in the Spirit,” which Father Giacomo Costa calls a “shared prayer with a view to discernment in common, for which participants prepare themselves through personal reflection and meditation.” Each member offers to others “the gift of a thoughtful word, nourished by prayer, not an opinion improvised on the spot.”