CHRISTIAN CHURCH UNITY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Christian Church Unity.”

This is a thinking type homily – more than an inspirational type homily.

This whole week we celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Prayers for Christian Church Unity. It’s been called, “The Church Unity Octave” – as well as the “Chair of Unity Octave”.

In the United States it goes from January 18th to the 25th - last Friday till next Friday. In Canada it takes in the two Sundays on each side of January 25th – the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

The hope is that the Christian churches will pray and work for unity.

We are divided – especially since the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries in the Western Church. Then there is the East-West Schism of 1054 – when the Greek Orthodox Church split from Rome. However, there have always been splits and rips in the fabric called Christianity.

And there have been Christians who cry when they see the Body of Christ torn in two – or torn into many separate pieces of cloth.

So this week – pray for Christian Unity. This week ponder the reality of the Body of Christ being split in various ways.

POPE BENEDICT

Every year for this octave there is a special theme for prayer. Pope Benedict’s prayer intention for this year is: “That the church work for full visible unity that better manifests a community of love which reflects the Blessed Trinity.”

We believe that God is Three Persons – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three persons – so different, so united, so in love with each other that they created us and keep this great big world and universe we live in going.

And when we, who are so different – male, female, young, old, this and that, here and there, unite and are creative – we are imaging God. We are showing we are made in the image and likeness of God.

The cynic in me – says at times: “The only way this world will ever stop fighting and killing and terrorizing each other – is when we discover an enemy on another planet – and we better unite out of fear and protection – lest they wipe us out.

The Catholic – the Christian in me – prays and hopes for unity.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Some New Testament scripture scholars hold that Jews who became followers of Christ – saw themselves still as Jews – but as a reform movement in Judaism – following the dream, the teachings, the vision of Jesus. This is what Saul – who becomes Paul – was trying to stop.

Christian Jews were not alone. Other Jews were following the reform movement of John the Baptist. These scholars then say that the John the Baptist texts in the gospels – like the one we heard this morning – show the attempt by Early Christians to convince these followers of John the Baptist to join them. They said that John the Baptist pointed out that Jesus was the one coming after him – but ranks ahead of him – because he existed before me. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I’m here to testify that he is the Son of God.

Bottom line – it took a while for Christianity to become the movement – the church, “ecclesia”, a Greek word that means “the gathering” – of different people and different movements – trying to be one.

Paul will run into all kinds of struggles for unity in the different early Christian communities. Listen carefully to the second reading most Sundays.

Unity is an ongoing struggle. Fights, splits, laziness, sin, reform movements, extremes, calls for unity, are part of the history of the church. Get really involved in any church, any parish – and you’ll run into fights, struggles, sin, power moves, and the deep cry for unity.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

On Saturdays I look in The New York Times for the Saturday article on religion. In recent years many are by Peter Steinfels. Yesterday he wrote about this Annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It was an excellent article and triggered my thoughts for this homily – more than today’s readings.

What are your thoughts about the Ecumenical movement – this movement for Christian churches as well as people of other religions to sit down at the same table? Has it fizzled? Has it done its job? What’s next?

100 years ago, 1908, Father Paul Wattson and Mother Lurana White, both Episcopalians, a priest and a nun, began a religious community in Garrison, New York – basing it on the Franciscan tradition.

They are the ones who started this wave of prayer – there have been others - this octave or 8 days of prayer for Christian Unity. A short time later they entered the Catholic Church – as a group – becoming known as the Graymoor Franciscans. I gave a retreat to the priests and brothers of this community a few years back. Good people. They are still a small group, but they have a great tradition of being a haven for the homeless and drifters at their place just outside the boundaries of New York City – as well as promoting Christian Unity.

When I was a kid in Brooklyn we were warned not to go into Protestant churches – yet I remember sneaking in every year on some day – it might have been Reformation Sunday – to get free ice cream. Our neighbors on both sides were Lutheran: the Fredholm’s with Swedish roots and the Gunderson’s with Norwegian roots. They would invite us kids to their church for ice cream. It was delicious – vanilla in a white paper cup – with a tiny sprinkle of almonds on it as well as a tiny taste of guilt.

We all have stories of our experiences of going into other Christian churches – if we were Protestant going into a Catholic church and vice versa – or synagogues or mosques or what have you.

Peter Steinfels points out: because of the Second Vatican Council – from 1962 to 1965 all changed. Protestant and Orthodox leaders were invited to sit in at the Council – and were called “Separated Brethren” instead of “heretics” or “schismatics”. Major decrees and declarations came out of the Second Vatican Council on Ecumenism, on Eastern Catholic Churches, on Non-Christians, and on Religious Freedom.

Cardinal Keeler – who just finished up as the Archbishop of this diocese of Baltimore is known as one of the major leaders amongst Catholic bishops in this area of Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Jews, etc. meeting together.

With elections coming up – especially with a Mormon running in the primary – we hear about John F. Kennedy’s speech on September 12, 1960 at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. We Catholics don’t have horns. A Catholic president could go to a non-Catholic worship service. A Catholic president wouldn’t have orders from Rome phoned into the White House every day.

Times have certainly changed. Surprise! The president of the United States and his wife and two former presidents attended John Paul II’s funeral in 2005.

Peter Steinfels says the ecumenical movement has cooled – not just because of successes – but for other reasons. He lists three:

1) Diversity – the opposite of unity – is good. If we don’t have differences, we might miss facets of Christianity that could slip through the cracks.

2) The greater need is not dialogue between Christians, but dialogue and understanding and relationships with Islam and other religions.

3) The need for identity – a clear cut identity – what makes us different from other Christian groups – is very important for every Christian group – if they want to continue.

I found this third observation something I need to think about a lot more – because I was taught diversity in my seminary training – and at times I don’t like it when I hear Rome seeming to be too narrow.

Peter Steinfels is his article mentions a study by Presbyterians – that the drift of “Presbyterian baby boomers away from their religious roots highlighted the difficulty parents and leaders of the denomination had in answering a simple question: ‘Why be a Presbyterian?’ One Presbyterian journalist rather unfairly cracked that the question might have been posed as ‘What is a Presbyterian?’

He then makes this comment about the Catholic Church. “This anxiety about identity is most evident in a stream of conservative positions taken by Pope Benedict XVI, his predecessor John Paul II, and their Vatican offices. It has been easier to question the wisdom of these measures than to argue that the anxiety behind them is unwarranted.”

That comment about identity hit me. It ought to be something we need to do a good bit of thinking and talking about. Identity. What is a Catholic? Is this a background question behind some of our Catholic infighting? Is this part of the push by some for Latin? We’ve all heard people say, “You could go into any church on a Sunday morning in the world and feel Catholic.” I would hope every Catholic could go into any Catholic church in the world and “get it” – no matter what language was spoken. Why, because they are Catholic. It is as simple as that.

I have been a Costello all my life – because I grew up in the Costello family all my life – and I go to our family stuff. This is my identity. I could spell it out – but I don’t have to. I just know what it is to be part of my family.

I have been a Redemptorist since taking my vows in 1960. Just as any married person slowly becomes identified with their spouse and their family, so I have identified with this family in the church.

What is a Catholic? Those who go to church on a regular basis know the answer is so many things.

First the obvious: the pope, the bishops, Jesuits, Franciscans, nuns, Nunsense, liberals, conservatives, the rosary, statues, complaints about priests and sermons, two collections, bingo, fund raisers, Catholic schools, Notre Dame, Loyola, Lourdes, Fatima.

Then we can go deeper: the St. Vincent de Paul Society, poor boxes, being pro life – having a deep concern for the unborn, the immigrant, the stranger in our midst, the hurting, people who dropped out of church for various reasons, sometimes a big hurt, and who have come back and found deep spirituality here, confession, communion, deep communion with Jesus after receiving communion, Lent being so much richer in the last 50 years than when it was just giving up smoking or drinking or candy for 40 days, seeing church as a chance for a richer spirituality, growth in scripture, deeper prayer, lay ministry, helping make a parish a great parish, etc. etc. etc.

CONCLUSION

And I would hope and assume that Protestant churches and other religious groups – also have deep roots and ways to reach our God.

I also assume that each group thinks they are the true group – otherwise I would assume a person would find the group that gives them the way, the truth and the life.

I would assume that we Christians remember the Early Church words of Tertullian who said why so many people became Christians. People identified Christians as people who loved one another. They would say, “See how they love one another.”

So this week, let’s pray for Christian unity – Christian love and understanding of all our sisters and brothers.

And let’s remember the words of Cardinal Mercier often used in meetings for Christian Church Unity:

"In order to unite with one another, we must love one another;

in order to love one another, we must know one another;

in order to know one another, we must go and meet one another."