Without precedents

It was a pilgrimage without precedents in the history of the ecumenical movement. At the invitation of the Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, the Most Rev. Jacques Perrier, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, leader of the Anglican Communion, visited the Sanctuary of Lourdes from 22 to 24 September, together with a large group of bishops, priests and laity of the Anglican Church of England – to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady to St. Bernadette. Waiting to welcome the Archbishop in Lourdes was also Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. Let us trace the most important stages of this ecumenical pilgrimage. Mary’s mission. The Marian pilgrimage began with the celebration of an international mass presided over by Cardinal Kasper. The sermon was preached by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who offered those present a meditation on Mary. “Mary – he said, describing Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, carrying Jesus in her womb (Luke 1:44) – appears to us here as the first missionary” and “reminds us that mission begins not in delivering a message in words but in the journey towards another person with Jesus in your heart”. “Our first and overarching task is to carry Jesus, gratefully and faithfully, with us in all our doings”. The archbishop also underlined the risk of understanding the Christian mission “as something to be done in the same way we do – or try to do – so much else, with everything depending on planning and assessments of how we’re doing”. Faced by this risk, warned Archbishop Williams, “Mary’s mission tells us that there is always a deeper dimension, grounded in the Christ who is at work, unknown and silent, reaching out to the deeply buried heart of each person”; “living faithfully at the heart of the Church itself, in the middle of its disasters and betrayals and confusions, still giving himself without reserve. All that we call ‘our’ mission depends on this”. “True mission – Williams added – is ready to be surprised by God” just as Elizabeth, though she knew the whole history of Israel, “was still surprised into newness of life and understanding when the child leapt in her womb”. Mary’s hope. Kasper and Williams later entered into a dialogue on Marian spirituality during a public conference. “Lourdes – said the cardinal – is known for its miracles: today we too are witnesses of a particular miracle”. “Who would have imagined – just twenty or thirty years ago – that, as is happening here today, Catholics and Anglicans would undertake a pilgrimage together”? “For those who are conscious of the controversies and polemics there have been in the past about Mary between Catholics and non-Catholic Christians, for those who know the reservations in the non-Catholic world about pilgrimages to Marian sites like Lourdes, for all these people this event without precedent that is taking place here today is a kind of miracle. Yes, in effect, we could also say that the whole ecumenical movement can also be classified among the miracles. After centuries of divisions and often of hostility between Christians of many denominations, our modern times have marked the beginning of a common pilgrimage towards the unity for which Jesus prayed on the eve of his death”. In recalling that “Mary is the woman of blessed hope”, the cardinal concluded. “This hope – founded not on a superficial optimism but on fidelity to God – is what we need for our ecumenical pilgrimage. We can’t run away and give up whenever difficulties arise and whenever immediate success is not within our grasp. In ecumenism, as indeed in the life of the Church as a whole, we must often pass through the tunnel of darkness to reach the light of Easter. We therefore need Mary’s hope. We also need hope in this world of ours today”. Fact fileThe dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans on Mary led in 2005 to the publication of an important joint document with the title “Mary: grace and hope in Christ”. The text is the outcome of five year’s work (from 1999 to 2004) and was drafted by the International Commission of dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Churches of the Anglican Communion (ARCIC) that had been established in 1970 by Pope Paul VI and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, and that remains today the official structure for theological dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans. In the document Catholics and Anglicans recognize “Mary as a model of holiness, faith and obedience for all Christians” and affirm that “Mary can be seen as a prophetic figure of the Church”. The document also tackles (though without resolving them completely) the controversial questions relating to the Marian dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption and Marian devotion within the Catholic Church. But in its conclusions the hope is expressed that the agreement reached would guide Catholics and Anglicans “towards the possibility of further reconciliation, in which the points that regard doctrine and devotion to Mary should not be seen as divisive of communion or as an obstacle to a new step in the growth towards visible koinonia“.