Developing a Spirit of Love and Unity

Dear Friends,

COVID has swept over many aspects of our lives. We are distracted by the very essentials of life: food, education, shelter, health, survival. With you, I look forward to the day when we pick up the threads of life that brought us together before and will enrich us as a human community again in the future. One such positive factor that rose prominently in new ways in the 20th century was ecumenism – the restoration of unity among all Christians. Ecumenism began in Europe among Protestant Churches between the world wars. The Catholic Church was not part of that movement initially. When the work was still new and largely unknown, the Greymoor Franciscan Community in downstate New York made efforts in ecumenism that came to be reasonably well known. This Catholic community, which had its roots in the Episcopal Church, highlighted the work of unity during the 8 days from January 18th (the former feast of the Chair of Peter to January 25th (the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul.) The work of ecumenism didn’t formally become part of the work of the whole Church until Vatican II issued the Decree on Ecumenism (1964.) Since then, the movement toward unity has been an important ingredient in the life of the Roman Catholic Church, along with churches that range from the Orthodox Churches of the East to the Protestant Churches of the west. One Lord, one faith, one baptism is both the call and the goal. 

How do our churches achieve that unity? For one thing, Christians of all denominations need to experience a change of heart, putting aside suspicion of one another, a lack of respect for the pilgrim journeys that various churches have taken. Our own church is not an exception. We need to work on our own house so we will be ready for union. 

Our churches need to take steps of engagement, together promoting justice and truth and collaboration, and above all, developing a spirit of love and unity. Pope John XXIII, who called the Second Vatican Council, recognized that the divisions among the churches were noxious. These divisions needed to be treated, he said, not with the “medicine of condemnation but the medicine of mercy.” 

Popes since Vatican II have been eager to meet with the patriarchal leaders of the Orthodox Churches and with Protestant Church leaders in the west. Their leadership and the work of the various church agencies are essential for re-union to happen.

But our own work as members of the Catholic Church is also necessary, so that the longing for and growth toward reunion is felt throughout the Body of Christ. We need to work through the divisions we have maintained for centuries. There are few absolutes in life. The early community of Jesus’ followers gave up things they thought they could never do without. Each subsequent generation needs to ask: What is for now, what is forever? What is essential and what is not? In the life of faith, nothing burdensome should be imposed unless strictly necessary (Acts 15.22). We , the community, must develop a keen awareness of the connectedness of all Christian believers with the Holy Spirit. 

Like the Christians of the first century, we are faced with questions that won’t go away. We too need to have the courage to become what we say we are, the Body of Christ today. We too need the courage to face the questions unity requires, not point fingers at each other or put each other down. It is the Holy Spirit and we (Acts 15.28), the believing community, who work to create a church ever more consistent with the Gospel, ever more sensitive to the times. 

 ~Sister Joan Sobala