ECUMENICAL SERVICE: DUBLIN
18 JANUARY 2013
We are indebted to the Indian Christian students who cite the great injustices done to the Dalits of India, in their preparation of the background material for this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. They press us to reflect on the havoc that castes or religious divisions do to people, to communities and to the Christian Church. A matter of concern is when people accept caste or division, with the mind that we cannot do anything about it! When that moment arrives, precisely then, something beautiful is taken away from us.
To live with Christian division is one option. Another is not to accept the status quo, but to become pro-active disciples of Christ for therestoration of the unity for which He prayed. (John 17, 11).
Tonight I have had to choose a track for our reflection. One approach is to go down the historic road, and speak of how our divisions came about; another approach is to examine the contemporary official efforts to promote ecumenism. In fact, I have opted for neither of these. I want, instead, to share with you the stories of people and communities who chose to make Christ’s prayer for unity, their own!
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Our journey begins here in Dublin with a brief reflection on a great ecumenist, FatherMichael Hurleywho died in 2011.While many of you might have known him, I came to know him through his writings. His influence reached beyond Dublin, even beyond these shores. In an early text of his I discovered his expressed rationale for an ecumenical venture, and on reading him I was introduced to a man who believed in unity and championed it in every way possible.
To further his project, Father Hurley established the Irish School of Ecumenics, which continues to this day, and he co-founded the Columbanus Community of Reconciliation on Antrim Road, Belfast. He had great staying-power, enormous courage and a depth of knowledge, all of which contributed to his gift to Ireland and to the Churches in Ireland. Father Hurley was a strong and courageous man, who was prepared to chide, even his own Church! “Is it not true”, he wrote, “that in much of Roman Catholic life since the Reformation we have emphasized our distinctiveness and differences.”
Then he turned and spoke just as firmly to Protestants, who over the centuries increasingly down-graded Mary’s place in the Christian Church. He said that Protestants would be more tolerant of Catholic doctrine and Catholic love of Mary, if only they were more familiar with the lead of their founders, for example, with Luther’s eighty Marian sermons which have survived into the present day, and with his highly-respected writings on the Magnificat of Mary.
May the memory of Father Hurley and his gifts continue to have life in this city and in this land.
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Since we are gathered for prayer for unity in this Indian Orthodox Church, my thoughts turn to a beautiful and strong lady, a woman ahead of her time – Sarah Chakko -from Cochin in Kerala, India, who had a strong and lasting love for her Syrian Orthodox tradition. Very interestingly, she developed a love and respect also for the Methodist Church where she would worship when an Orthodox Church was not in the locality of her work. She had great affection for the World Council of Churches, observing the first general assembly in Amsterdam in 1948; and at the second assembly in Evanston in 1954 she was the official delegate of the Syrian Orthodox Church. But it is in her remarks to a World Christian Youth Conference in 1952 that we gain an insight into the ecumenical breadth of this lady. “It is my hope”, Sarah said to the youth, that as you “come face to face with all kinds of challenges, from the ancient faiths and from modern ideologies, that from this learning you may become the channels through whom the message of Christ our Lord reaches those who hunger and thirst after the things of God.”
May we, too, heed her advice and become channels of Christ’s message of unity.
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We now turn to two prophetic leaders, one from the east, the Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople, who believed that the unity of the Church and the unity of humankind are so closely linked that there is no place for intra-Christian quarrels. It was in the land of Jesus, in the city of Jerusalem where He was put to death and where He rose from the dead, that Patriarch Athenagoras met another great ecumenist, Pope Paul VI.
That was the first meeting in centuries of Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic Christianity. Why wait so long, we might ask? All we can say is that 1964 was the right time!
Together Paul VI and Athenagoras expressed their passion for a “communion of churches”, which was to bring to life an expression that had long faded from the Christian vocabulary, at least in the west. What they were saying is that Christians share a common endowment which is none other than the life of Christ who draws each into intimacy with his Father and the Holy Spirit; and because we are all baptized, we are disposed by grace to grow in Christian communion with one another. Our Christian vocation is to respond to the empowerment that the Baptismal graces give us. It is precisely these graces that brought us here tonight; the same graces ought impel us to go from here so as to make a difference.
Making a difference is our Christian vocation! Though we are Christian in virtue of the Sacrament of Baptism, we have developed a variety of cultures, each of them with distinctive characteristics, including qualities anda dignity, though sometimes with thorns on the outer edges. We may not always understand one another, but that is what we are to work at, that is the ecumenical challenge, first, by coming to terms with our own identity and its demand for loyalty, while opening ourselves to the riches of other Christian traditions. In a word, our ecumenical intent is to develop within ourselves a mind and a heart for unity, and to establish around us a culture of unity and community. Our aim then is to become a communion of Churches. Therein lies the model of Christian reunion!
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At this juncture I am reminded of two outstanding Archbishops’ of Canterbury who contributed significantly to the ecumenical cause. Archbishop (1961-1974) Michael Ramsey who, in 1966 established the Anglican Centre in Rome which continues in place to this day as a tangible presence in Rome of the Anglican Communion and in particular of the current Archbishop of Canterbury. He also, with Pope Paul VI, established ARCIC, The Anglican Rome Catholic Dialogue which has produced a number of noteworthy agreements. To seal their bond of friendship, as it were, Paul VI took from his own finger the ring that had been presented to him by the people of Milan and placed it on the finger of the Archbishop; every subsequent Archbishop of Canterbury when visiting Rome, wears that same ring, which reminds us of the importance of symbols.
The second is Archbishop (1980-1991) Robert Runcie who suggested to Pope John Paul II when they met in Ghana that he might care to visit Canterbury which, in fact, happened in 1982. The fact is that no Bishop of Rome had ever been in Britain, yet it was Pope Gregory the Great who had sent the Benedictine monks there to found the Church of Canterbury. Runcie observed that for over twenty years Anglicans and Roman Catholics had been rediscovering the unity they once shared; now, he said, we are beginning to receive from each other the gifts and treasures of our two traditions.
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The journey unto unity begins in human hearts. One such man whose life witnessed to such an ideal was Akanu Ibiam, a Nigerian who studied medicine in Scotland, though he was determined that he would return home more than as a doctor, but as a Presbyterian medical missionary. He preached Christ by the example of his life and work, building bridges between Protestants and Catholics and Pentecostals. He served and never counted the cost. The title of his biography says it all: BORN TO SERVE.
There are contemporary religious communities which demonstrate graphically that different Christian traditions can engage with one another, live and pray together. One such is The Chemin Neuf Community, dating from 1973. Their manifesto explains that “Because divisions between Christians are the greatest obstacle to evangelization; because we believe that the prayer of Jesus Christ for unity will be fulfilled, together, Orthodox, Protestants, Catholics, without waiting any longer, we follow the humble path of shared daily life.” And they add: “Because of our love for each other, because joy is more powerful than anything else, we commit our lives to serve the Church and the Unity of Christians.” This community has around 2000 members in over 30 countries.
Highly respected because of its ability to serve is The Salvation Army, a group of people totally committed to a demanding life of charity, without ever asking for an ID. Fitting comfortably within the Christian orbit, they have entered into a conversation with the Catholic Church, thereby modeling a special kind of relationship of two communities who share a concern for one another, for wider society, and for the needy.
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May we conclude this reflection mindful of the founder of this week of prayer for Christian Unity, the Frenchman Abbe Paul Couturier who tells us that “there can be no ecumenism worthy of the name without a change of heart. This change of heart and holiness of life, along with public and private prayer for the unity of Christians, should be regarded as the soul of the whole ecumenical movement.”
A young Sardinian girl, Gabriella Sagheddu, believed these words so firmly that she offered her life for the unity of the church, and when she died from tuberculosis at the age of 31, her one treasured possession was the gospel of St John, notably finger-marked at Chapter 17, the source of her ceaseless meditation. She is now the Blessed Gabriella Sagheddu, patroness of ecumenism.
Frederick M. Bliss S.M., University of St Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), Rome.