The Pope of Christian Unity Connects New Evangelization and Healing the Divisions in the Body of Christ. Do We

11/16/2012

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progress toward some form of communion between Eastern and Western Christianity which could make the Third Millennium a millennium of communion.

He has championed the re-christianizing of Europe and passionately promoted the New Evangelization of the Church - even establishing a new Pontifical Council on the New Evangelization. He has been a champion of the New Ecclesial movements and helped to ensure that they are rooted in the heart of the Church and received as gift for the missionary work of the Church in this hour.

He has doggedly defended the Christian roots of the West and defended religious freedom as a fundamental human right. He has engaged the Islamic world with great charity and courage on the ground of dialogue in truth. He began the "Courts of the Gentiles" outreach engaging atheists and agnostics. Clearly, this is a missionary Pope.

I remember that day, April 20, 2005, when the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI gave his first message at the end of a Mass he had concelebrated with the members of the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel. He signaled his mission:

"Nourished and sustained by the Eucharist, Catholics cannot but feel encouraged to strive for the full unity for which Christ expressed so ardent a hope in the Upper Room. The Successor of Peter knows that he must make himself especially responsible for his Divine Master's supreme aspiration. Indeed, he is entrusted with the task of strengthening his brethren (cf. Luke 22: 32).

"With full awareness, therefore, at the beginning of his ministry in the Church of Rome which Peter bathed in his blood, Peter's current Successor takes on as his primary task the duty to work tirelessly to rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers. This is his ambition, his impelling duty."

The authentic ecumenical mission of restoring the full and visible unity of the Church has been the beating heart of Pope Benedict's years of service in the Chair of St Peter. That is because it reflects Heart of the Lord. "I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me." (John 17: 20, 21)

Catholics speak of our Christian friends in other Christian communities who have been validly baptized in accordance with a Trinitarian formula as already being in "imperfect communion" with the One Church. This is why Catholics do not "re-baptize" a Christian from another community who comes into the Catholic Church. We speak of them as coming into "full communion" because they are already joined to the one Church in an "imperfect" or incomplete communion.

The Church is God's Plan for the whole human race. Jesus came to found the Church and begin the New Creation. It is a communion from above into which we enter. It is His Body. He is the Head and we are the members. Through our Baptism the Church becomes our home, our mother, the place in which we now live our lives in Christ.

To perceive and live this reality requires a continuing and dynamic conversion brought about by grace, which is mediated to us through the Sacraments and, most especially through our Eucharistic communion. We are sons and daughters of the Church. In living our lives within her we are enlisted in the mission of carrying forward in time the continuing work of Jesus Christ.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, citing patristic sources, states: "To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark which "in the full sail of the Lord's cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world." According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood." (#895)

To this Church has been entrusted the Sacraments (Mysteries), the Word of God, and the gift of a Teaching Office - Magisterium - through which Jesus Christ continues to speak through the Holy Spirit. The Church is not an optional "extra" that we add on to our lives, she is our life and we live our lives now in Christ.

From Christ's wounded side, the Church was birthed at the tree of Calvary, the altar of the new world. Through faith we are invited into this mystery and by grace we come to more fully comprehend and live it as we respond to the ongoing call to conversion and newness of life.

Pope Benedict XVI has remained faithful to the conviction he expressed on the day of his first allocution. It is his 'Impelling Duty to work toward the rebuilding of the full and visible unity of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church."

He is fulfilling ...
- - -

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Unity, ecumenism, Pope of Christian unity, New Evangelization, communion, Pope Benedict XVI, John 17, Deacon Keith Fournier

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1 - 4 of 4 Comments

Paul-Emile Leray
6 months ago
Very nice. I once asked an American Jesuit (wonderful man) what one sign of being on the right path was and his quiet reply was: harmony. For peace, unity, joy, harmony is important. I will expound, though. It is possible to feel harmonious on some levels and yet not be on the right path. How? Ignorance. If the script is wrong, yet we believe it is right and everyone around us believes it is right, there might be illusions of harmony present even if the ship is way off course. Let me further explain with the following from Abraham Maslow: the normal adjustment of the average, common-sense, well-adjusted implies a continued sucessful rejection of much of the depths of human nature.

Therefore, on some levels the biggest cult of all, it has been said, is what? Culture. What if the culture is half insane? What if the culture is sick? Then the media risks being off track. The politics and laws risk being off track. What I am getting at is that I am very grateful for the Catholic Church and their leaders. Their theologians, their philosophers, and so forth are a blessing. If the culture at large is crazy, then being ostracized and ridiculed is a sign of sanity. (which explains, in part, why so many martyrs existed and continue to do so)

Paul-Emile Leray
Tom McGuire
6 months ago
Bishop Luis Antonio Tagle shared this story in his book, Easter People, Orbis Books, 2005. It speaks to much of what Pope Benedict XVI and Deacon Keith Fournier are saying. His story awakens an emotion in me about where I am. I hope it does the same for all who read it.

“Before returning to the Philippines after studying in the United States, I met a Chinese student from the People’s Republic of China, where he was a student of sociology and economics. He was in Washington, D.C., to attend a conference. While he was at The Catholic University, the Tiananmen Square Massacre happened and he decided not to go home. He found a way for his wife to join him, and they stayed in Washington where he continued his studies. Despite being a non-believer who grew up without belonging to any religion, he was very interested in religions, especially Christianity. When he heard I was going back to the Philippines, he invited me to meet his wife and have sup- per with them.

He mentioned that he was enjoying his stay at the university and I asked if he was learning anything about religion and Christianity. “What is your impression of our faith, our religion?” “You know, your Bible is the most beautiful book I have ever read,” he said. “How about the Christian approach to life? Have you had a chance to reflect on it?” “Yes,” he said, “I have taken courses in Christian ethics, Christian doctrine, and history of Christian dogma.” Then he said, “I think Christianity has solutions to all the problems of the world. If Christianity could only be lived out, all the problems that I see in China could be solved.” And so I asked, “Are you a believer now?” His response was, “Not yet. My mind understands and my mind has decided that what I understand is true; but I still cannot say, ‘I believe.’”

I found this Chinese student to be very, very wise. To make the jump from “This is true” to “I believe” is not just a matter of explication. There are many truths that we see, but to be able to say, “I believe” needs grace. I have a feeling that he already believes. I can- not believe that grace is absent. What else is missing for him to be able to say in grace, “I believe”?
Before we parted I told him, “Should you reach a point when you can say, ‘I believe,’ I hope you won’t forget the Catholic tradition.” He had mentioned that he also studied the Protestant tradition. “Oh, yes. I appreciate the many different traditions. Your Catholic tradition is much fuller,” he said, adding, “but after two years here at Catholic University, my only heartache is that no Catholic priest, sister, or student has approached me to teach me about the Word of God. Every Friday the Baptists come to my house and invite me to learn about their religion. You Catholics are very, very weak in evangelism.” As he said this I felt like a culprit. I realized that he was searching for a community that would share its faith, its memory with him. And somehow we failed him. A non-believer who spoke beautifully about the Word of God and the Catholic tradition was making me realize how my indifference, inaction, and sin of omission, in other words my failure to forge community with him, were turning me into an enemy of the Christian faith. Forgetfulness hindered me from actively building bridges of communion with him.

I still remember one of my professors saying that there is an unbeliever within every believer and that we need to constantly dialogue with, evangelize, and convert that part of us. Our belief in the resurrection rests in our acceptance of the cross of Jesus’ love. The more we distance ourselves from the cross and push it to forgetfulness, the more the resurrection becomes a distant reality in our lives. Only by carrying the cross of the victims of history and society in love do we become agents of hope in society.”
Jeremiah
6 months ago
This is my Confirmation name.

I remember my childhood when I often was discussing with my dad about various topics. Although sometimes we were arguing very hard, I know that now he prays for me in the Heaven, and I pray for him here.

The unity is not when you put together two cubes, because they will remain two separate cubes.

When Apostle John mentioned the Seven Churches, did he address different churches?

If the "differences" were and are the fruit of devil's work, they will vanish and will be merely forgotten as if they never existed. If they remain, and after the "administrative" kisses they surely will remain, it means that there is something that blows them up and this "something" may find it (new administrative arrangements) quite comfortable to hide in (in this new den).

This is my position of an ignorant and humble man.

In Christ,
abey
6 months ago
The unity is in the diversity of The Faith, not the diversity of faiths & this Faith is to the Perfect Unity of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit of three persons but of the same substance to one God. It is only by this unity comes our unity through the Person of the Son Christ Jesus who being the express Image of God & on whose Image & Likeness is man created. To understand this unity better we need to understand as to what is disunity in the beliefs, like the three headed God of Hinduism where the stories about the relationship between the three is abound with total strife & supremacy of one over the other even unto adverse sexual corruptions to the point of no return cause it was so in their very beginnings. Beliefs project the truth & to this is the belief in Christ to perfect unity as it was in the beginning, always been.

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