A PASTORAL LETTER TO GOD’S PEOPLE OF THE DIOCESE OF BATHURST
ONE LORD, ONE FAITH, ONE BAPTISM
CHRISTIAN UNITY FOR A TORN AND TATTERED WORLD
Dear Friends in Christ,
In this letter, I want to offer a word of encouragement and gratitude to all of you who pray and work for unity in the Church, whether in large or small ways. I also want to offer a word of instruction, in fidelity to Catholic doctrine, for those who may be confused about, apathetic or even resistant to this vital activity.
The title of the letter comes from chapter 4 of St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, written from prison. I invite you to read the chapter in full, to take in the gentleness and strength with which he urges us to move from the imperfect unity we experience now to the fullness of unity in Christ.
Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love (vv. 15-16).
I will be talking about our Catholic commitment to seeking full and visible communion between churches and communities who already belong to the Body of Christ, but are currently institutionally separated from one another.
At the same time, it is important to remember that, even within denominations, even at the parish level, our human frailty can bring divisions which also need to be reconciled in truth and love.
The Dialogue of Mutual Conversion
The two great blockages on the road to Christian unity are, at one extreme, mutual suspicion and hostility; and, at the other, complacency. We have to begin by recognising that attitudes of distrust and of refusing to recognise one another’s ecclesial gifts come from a painful history.
The visible sign of unity is when we can share in the Eucharist together. Each celebration of Mass connects us back in time to the Last Supper and Calvary; and forward to the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. One of the many images of the Church used in Vatican II is the Bride of Christ. Towards the end of the Book of Revelation, the concluding book of the Christian Bible, we read:
Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready (Rev 19:7)…I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (21:2).
Over a millennium later, in 1170 to be exact, the Doctor of the Church St Hildegard had a similar revelation:
I had a vision of a woman of such beauty that the human mind is unable to comprehend. She stretched in height from earth to heaven. Her face shone with exceeding brightness and her gaze was fixed on heaven…
Then, this vision goes on to show the Church, not only as she will become, but as she is now:
But her face was stained with dust, her robe was ripped down the right side, her cloak had lost its sheen of beauty and her shoes were dirty... And I heard a voice from heaven which said: ‘This image represents the Church’.
(letter to Werner von Kirchheim)
Hildegard wrote about this in a letter to a community of priests, as part of her work to warn the clergy against seeking pleasure, wealth and power, by which some were corrupting and dividing the Church.
However, it is not only those entrusted with the sacred ministry who have the opportunity to foster selfishness and division. In the first century, St James alerted all Christians to this danger:
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? … you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. (James 4:1-2)
We can read in the Gospels several instances of jealousy and rivalry among the Apostles. And, in the epistles and the Acts of the Apostles, it is clear that there were disputes over doctrine and practice in the first generation of Christians. Some of these were at the local level; others went to the top, such as the arguments between Peter and Paul.
As membership of the Church grew, and Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it all became larger and more complex. The task of judging new ideas according to their fidelity to the preaching of the Apostles began to be enmeshed in the wider social and political realities of the time.
This has continued through the centuries; and the entanglement of doctrinal disputes in local and
international rivalries, as well as love of riches, has led Christians to imprison, torture and kill one another. The memory of these wounds and scars inflicted by our forebears remains; and contrition for them is the beginning of reconciliation for us today.
The painstaking work of honest dialogue is carried on at global and regional levels by church leaders, theologians and scripture scholars. Inevitably, the various international and national dialogues are sometimes misunderstood as negotiations: “if you give up this, we’ll give up that”. However, these projects should truly be seen as dialogues: in which each side seeks to understand more thoroughly the beliefs and ideas of the other; and in doing so comes to clarify and even deepen its own position; and, God
willing, move together towards new-found expressions of truth.
What the Second Vatican Council’s decree on ecumenism called the impulse of God’s grace gently and insistently pushes us forward. In his major encyclical three decades ago, Ut unum sint, Pope St John Paul II accepted this responsibility, like the popes before him, as central to his ministry as Bishop of Rome; and both of his successors have continued in that awareness. The awareness includes the insight that the Petrine ministry itself may either be an obstacle or, potentially, a pathway to full communion (See UUS nn 88-96).
Please scan QR to read the study ‘TheBishopofRome’ >>>>>
Recently, the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity published a study called The Bishop of Rome, harvesting the fruits of the many ecumenical dialogues which have taken place in response to John Paul’s invitation to look at how the Pope could exercise his primacy in a new situation.
Participation in the search for Christian Unity is not limited to leaders and specialists. In fact, it is incomplete unless it involves the engagement of people at the local level. Like all Christian service, it begins in prayer, both individually and with others, including those with whom we are seeking full communion.
1. Whatever divides us, we believe in Jesus’ promise that, where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there (Mt 18:20). Our unity may be imperfect, but in prayer we already experience belonging together to Christ. As John Paul said, when Christians pray together, the goal of unity seems closer (cf UUS nn. 22-27).
2. Opening together the Scriptures that we share can let God speak truth to us in new ways.
3. Listening to one another witness to the ways that the Spirit is moving in our lives can be a revelation and encouragement for us.
4. Working together on projects of justice and mercy means meeting Christ together in the poor and afflicted.
Overcoming Complacency
At the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer The Church on the Path of Unity, we pray:
For by the word of your Son’s Gospel you have brought together one Church from every people, tongue, and nation; and, having filled her with life by the power of your Spirit, you never cease through her to gather the whole human race into one.
This description of the Church as the sacrament of unity may be found in the teachings of Vatican II, and as far back as St Cyprian in the 3rd century. It is why John Paul, in his encyclical Ut unum sint, told us that to seek the goal of full communion is not an optional extra. The work for unity is not only for the removal of a stumbling block that inhibits the preaching of the Gospel: it is above all because of the deep identity of the Church as a sacrament of unity for the whole human family.
This unity, which the Lord has bestowed on his Church and in which he wishes to embrace all people, is not something added on, but stands at the very heart of Christ’s mission. Nor is it some secondary attribute of the community of his disciples. Rather, it belongs to the very essence of this community. God wills the Church, because he wills unity, and unity is an expression of the whole depth of his love. (n.9)
The central insight of the encyclical’s argument is worth remembering in times when we are discouraged by
tiredness or uncertainty of direction in our familiar ways of ecumenical endeavour. More than just a dissatisfaction with particular methods, there has also been a weakening of zeal and even a cessation of effort among some members of the Church.
Our human family cries out for justice, reconciliation and peace. As I write this letter, we can see, with sorrow and anxiety, the social and political divisions that bring the wounding and the killing, the famines and displacements of wars, to so many people in our world today. Even where these divisions have not so far developed into full scale hostilities, injustices and tensions pullulate; even in lucky countries like our own.
Many Christians are engaged in working for peace and in changing the conditions that undermine it. But, as John Paul asks, how can we proclaim the Gospel of reconciliation without at the same time being committed to working for reconciliation among Christians? (n.98)
Blessed Maria Gabriella Sagheddu, pray for us
Maria Gabriella was a Trappist nun who was born in 1914, died in 1939 and was beatified in 1983. Pope John Paul said of her:
Praying for unity is not a matter reserved only to those who actually experience the lack of unity among Christians. In the deep personal dialogue which each of us must carry on with the Lord in prayer, concern for unity cannot be absent. ...It
was in order to reaffirm this duty that I set before the faithful of the Catholic Church a model which I consider exemplary, the model of a Trappistine Sister, Blessed Maria Gabriella of Unity, whom I beatified on 25 January 1983. Sister Maria Gabriella, called by her vocation to be apart from the world, devoted her life to meditation and prayer centered on chapter seventeen of Saint John’s Gospel, and offered her life for Christian unity. ...The example of Sister Maria Gabriella is instructive; it helps us to understand that there are no special times, situations or places of prayer for unity. Christ’s prayer to the Father is offered as a model for everyone, always and everywhere.
May the simplicity of St Paul’s words, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism lead us into what is at once a reality and a hope.
+Michael McKenna Bishop of Bathurst
Memoria of Pope St John Paul II, 2024
