The first and last frontier

During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Benedict XVI has had two occasions to speak of the theme of ecumenism and has focused his reflections on prayer. It was an obligatory reference to the theme of the week: “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17), but it was also prompted by the objective situation of the state of ecumenism in the world. The centrality of prayer was also shared by the Methodist pastor Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC). So the Pope did not find himself in isolation, but in full communion with the deep consciousness of Christians in their striving towards full communion. It is a consciousness charged with feelings of gratitude and praise to the Lord for the great works He has accomplished in relations between the Churches and Christian communities. What would our history have been without the action of the Holy Spirit and how otherwise would it have been possible for those who had once been so far apart from each other to meet together to pray? These feelings were expressed by Benedict XVI and by Kobia, both of them emphasizing the communion that is realized by praying together. In this way it may also be said that the ecumenical process, like a circle, has been closed and returns to its point of departure a hundred years ago. That process was begun by Sister Lurana White and by the Rev. Paul Wattson of the Episcopalian Church, both of whom later became Catholics, but had been heralded, at the end of the 19th century, by Pope Leo XIII. But the circle is closed not as it had opened. At the start, a century ago, Catholics prayed, and long continued to pray, for the “return” of the dissidents to the fold of the Roman Church. So it was mainly Catholics who prayed for the restoration of unity. Then they began to understand that the question was more complex than that; they began to pray no longer for a return to an impossible past, but for a future designed by God himself, “when and how God wills” (Paul Couturier). This change of route can be considered the first result of the preceding prayer, which caused a process of purification and conversion from a perspective of dialogue between Churches to the raising of our gaze to God, shepherd of his people, lord and guide of all the churches. The turning point of Couturier is the work of the Holy Spirit that is never denied to those who ask God for it with trust (Lk 11: 13). Without the action of the Holy Spirit the ecumenical movement would not even have been born: “The ship of ecumenism would never have put out to sea”, declared Benedict XVI. And he also posed the question “what would the ecumenical movement become without the personal or communal prayer”, in imitation of the prayer of Jesus to the Father that all those who believed in him, may be one (Jn 17: 21). Nor can we forget that in these same years the movement begun in 1910 at the Protestant missionary conference in Edinburgh took its first steps. It was a movement whose members were moved by an impulse of the Spirit that induced them to “do something” to avoid the scandal of divisions in the mission countries. That meeting gave rise to initiatives and efforts of every kind. For the Catholic Church more time was needed, but when the time came the Church as a whole opened itself to the idea that the search for unity was a pastoral priority and an irreversible commitment. At the present time, after so many successes and so many hopes, responses sometimes enshrined in signed documents, or in ecumenical assemblies characterized by enthusiastic participation, and relations shared in mixed groups of dialogue, the Spirit is warning the Church, through the words expressed by Benedict XVI in the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls on 25 January, that “the task of restoring unity, which demands all our energy and efforts, is infinitely above our possibilities”. And he added: “It’s not in our power to decide when or how this unity will be fully achieved. Only God can do it”.The lucidity of this acknowledgement of Christian realism, full of trust in the Lord, must not be considered an alibi to justify resignation and passive waiting for the work of God. This danger is run by those who have a quietist conception of prayer. Prayer, instead, should be the first phase of a conversion of heart and mind. It is not by chance that a young Trappist nun, a woman of prayer, Sister Maria Gabriella Sagheddu, cited by the Pope in his homily, understood ecumenism by the intellect of faith and in the light of the Spirit. Today in prayer we must especially ask for illumination, to understand from whence the process of reconciliation should be developed, how to tackle the new challenges and overcome the temptations to create further divisions between us, what level of unity is currently possible as well as necessary to avoid the scandal of open conflict and division, and how credibly to offer the Gospel to a humanity confused and suffering due to the scourges of ignorance, hunger and violence. Only from the common prayer of all the baptized, the first level of communion, shall the world be able to glimpse on the horizon a signal of hope for a future of peace and recognize that God is love, Deus Caritas est .