#ecumenicism

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Happy first day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Let’s pray for greater understanding between Christian Churches and ecclesial communities, and the grace to overcome the issues that divide us.

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TIL that you don’t have to be a Catholic to enroll in, and receive (most of) the spiritual benefits of, the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary… 👀👀👀

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The Protestant Reformation: A Battle Between Nominalists?

Whenever I get in conversations with Protestants, and we're agreeing on a lot of things, but then we get back to the sixteenth century... you know, justification and all that. I always go back to that, and I say, 'You know, what frustrates me is, I think, everybody in a way in the sixteenth century was hung up on a more nominalist view of God, and saw God as a competitive... — 'and how much glory does He get, and I better give way if He is going to be sufficiently honored, how much is grace, how much is works'... Irenaeus! "The glory of God is man fully alive!" You want to give God glory, as Luther and Calvin did (and they were right about that), you want the sovereign God to get all the glory... well, then, He loves my good works! He loves my full involvement in Christ.I, uh, see, my view, as a Catholic, is Aquinas's (I think far richer) view, of God is ipsum esse, God is a sheer act of 'to Be,' and in through which all things subsist and come to be. And God was non-competitively related to the world. That [view] gave way at the end of the Middle Ages, the beginning of modernity, to a much more nominalist view of the competitive God; which I think haunted the sixteenth century. And they all were fighting about that. I want to say, in a way, 'A plague on both your houses!' That we... it's a faulty view of God animating most of those debates. And I would love to engage it there, and so before we even get to sacramental issues, there's a more fundamental 'How do we understand God and our relation to God?'

- Bishop Robert Barron, An Anglican-Catholic Dialogue on Scripture

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The future of faith in our world passes through Christian unity. Yes, we do not agree on everything. Yes, we have convictions that sometimes seem incompatible, or are incompatible. But that is precisely why we choose to love each other. Love is stronger than all disagreements and divisions. […] Jesus Christ is a bond that is stronger and deeper than our cultures, our political options, and even than our doctrines. The Lord! Jesus the Lord! Look at Him who gave His life for us!

Pope Francis (Address on the Occasion of the Launching of the Ecumenical "Community at the Crossing")

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Father, we pray for Your holy Catholic Church, — that we all may be one.

Grant that every member of the Church may truly and humbly serve You, — that Your Name may be glorified by all people.

We pray for all bishops, priests, and deacons — that they may be faithful ministers of Your Word and Sacraments.

from the Book of Common Prayer according to the Use of the Episcopal Church, Prayers for the People, Form III

Grant, Almighty God, that all who confess Your Name may be united in Your truth, live together in Your love, and reveal Your glory to the world. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

from the Book of Common Prayer according to the Use of the Episcopal Church, Prayers for the People, Form IV

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Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss.

John Wesley (Letter to a Roman Catholic, §16)

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Leave it to an Anglican to suggest that intercommunion is the first step of the process of reunification, and not the goal and end.

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A prayer intention for this year's Week of Christian Unity: In the words of Fr. Paul Courterier, Father of Spiritual Ecumenicism, we we pray "for the unity of the Church as Christ wills it, and in accordance with the means He wills."