The days preceding the feast of the conversion of Saint Paul on Jan. 25 traditionally marks the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, at least in the global north (other parts of the world celebrate it during the Pentecost season).
For Catholics, that date is an important one, because it was on this feast in 1959 during a visit to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls that Pope Saint John XXIII shocked the world by announcing his intention to call an ecumenical council, which we would eventually come to know as Vatican II.
This is then an important time of year for all believers in Christ, as we strive to live up to the “high priestly” prayer of Jesus described in John’s Gospel when he longed that his followers be one, as he and the Father are one.
This year, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity worked with various other communities and organizations to focus the week’s efforts and attention around a passage from the 10th chapter of Luke’s Gospel, where Jesus calls us to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. (Luke 10:25-37). The materials for this year were arranged by a team from the West African nation of Burkina Faso, facilitated by members of the Chemin Neuf community.
Chemin Neuf is a Catholic community founded in 1973 Lyons, France, that strives to build ecumenical bridges. Today, there are thousands of members in 30 countries, including the United States, who follow in the footsteps of Père Laurent Fabre, the community’s founder.
In the Muslim-majority nation of Burkina Faso, married couples, priests and religious nuns in Chemin Neuf pray, work and live in an intentional way that foregrounds relationship-building among Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and Pentecostal populations. The community highlights the pioneering work of Abbé Paul Couturier, particularly in his prayer to ask the Spirit to enable us to experience more profoundly the suffering caused by division, thereby empowering us to recognize our own sins that contribute to it, and hoping beyond hope that we may overcome it.
Longtime readers of this paper know well that the Diocese of Camden has a thriving Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Affairs Office guided by columnist Father Joseph Wallace. But this element of our lives of faith cannot today be left to niche specialists or ministerial professionals, whether ordained or lay, paid or volunteer to be a believer in the 21st century mandates that every one of us live the historical dimension of the faith in its fullest, including the healing of memories that have long separated us from our brothers and sisters who proclaim Christ as Lord.
As theologian David Tracy once put it when speaking about faith in our day, “The new search is likely to become that of more and more religious persons. Stay faithful to your own tradition; go more and more deeply into its particularities; defend and clarify its identity. At the same time, wander Ulysses-like, willingly, even eagerly, among other great traditions and ways; try to learn something of their beauty and truth; concentrate on their otherness and difference as the new route to communicality.” Encountering, accompanying and learning with and from other Christians is a crucial step in this process.
The materials for this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity point out that “a true spiritual, pastoral and ecclesial conversion without proselytism is essential for real ecumenical dialogue, without false irenicism. Christian unity, which has its source and ultimate goal in the love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is a grace for which it is necessary to turn to God in prayer.”
May we all then ask God to grant that the heart of every believer be rekindled in light of this lifelong process of turning away from ourselves, our own concerns and our provincialism in the believing Church, so as to move ever closer toward the genuine love of God and of neighbor, particularly the most vulnerable in our midst. We can hopefully always find allies in this quest among the many baptized in other denominations and across the wider People of God.
An alumnus of Camden Catholic High School, Cherry Hill, Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., teaches at Loyola University, Chicago.
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