Word to the Wise
Thursday, May 20, 2010 - Thursday in the Seventh Week of Easter
[Acts 22:30; 23:6-11 and John 17:20-26]I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.
Remember the word, "ecumenism?" And the adjective, "ecumenical?" Do those seem like a vague memory of a failed effort after the Second Vatican Council? Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical, Ut unum sint [That They May Be One], called the church to realize that ecumenism is not an "add-on" or a program but a constituent part of the church's ministry. He echoed the wish expressed in Jesus' farewell prayer, quoted above. Yet, we do not seem to be any closer to our brothers and sisters of other Christian traditions, let alone those of non-Christian faith traditions. Perhaps we Catholics no longer feel like we commit a mortal sin if we set foot in a non-Catholic church, but that hardly makes for ecumenism! The recent provisions made by the Vatican to receive certain folks from the Anglican tradition and for married clergy from that tradition seem more to have "muddied the waters" than to advance understanding and mutuality! Veterans of the ecumenical apostolate know that more than 400 years of separation are not going to be overcome easily in the forty or so years since the Second Vatican Council. The obstacles are considerable. Pope John Paul II himself recognized the particular challenge represented by the papacy in his encyclical. Pope Benedict XVI consistently warns again "relativism" that reduces all beliefs to a common convenient denominator, but one wonders where any common ground can be found. With other Christians, belief in Jesus? With Jews and Muslims, belief in God and common spiritual descent from Abraham? With Buddhists, Hindus, Tao, etc. those rays of God's truth that shine through? The task will go on for years to come. Perhaps the most that folks in the pew can do is pray with our brothers and sisters of non-Catholic traditions that somehow the Holy Spirit will bring sense out of our divisions and enable us to work toward the kind of unity that Christ prayed for, whatever that may be! AMEN
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