The primacy of prayer
21.
"This change of heart and holiness of life, along with public and
private prayer for the unity of Christians, should be regarded as the soul
of the whole ecumenical movement, and can rightly be called 'spiritual
ecumenism' ".42
We proceed along the road
leading to the conversion of hearts guided by love which is directed to God
and, at the same time, to all our brothers and sisters, including those not in
full communion with us. Love gives rise to the desire for unity, even in those
who have never been aware of the need for it. Love builds communion between
individuals and between Communities. If we love one another, we strive to
deepen our communion and make it perfect. Love is given to God as the
perfect source of communion—the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit—that we
may draw from that source the strength to build communion between individuals
and Communities, or to re-establish it between Christians still divided. Love
is the great undercurrent which gives life and adds vigour to the movement
towards unity.
This love finds its most
complete expression in common prayer. When brothers and sisters who are not
in perfect communion with one another come together to pray, the Second Vatican
Council defines their prayer as the soul of the whole ecumenical movement.
This prayer is "a very effective means of petitioning for the grace of
unity", "a genuine expression of the ties which even now bind
Catholics to their separated brethren".43 Even when prayer is
not specifically offered for Christian unity, but for other intentions such as
peace, it actually becomes an expression and confirmation of unity. The common
prayer of Christians is an invitation to Christ himself to visit the community
of those who call upon him: "Where two or three are gathered in my name,
there am I in the midst of them" (Mt 18:20).
22.
When Christians pray together, the goal of unity seems closer. The long history
of Christians marked by many divisions seems to converge once more because it
tends towards that Source of its unity which is Jesus Christ. He "is the
same yesterday, today and forever!" (Heb
13:8). In the fellowship of prayer Christ is truly present; he prays
"in us", "with us" and "for us". It is he who
leads our prayer in the Spirit-Consoler whom he promised and then bestowed on
his Church in the Upper Room in Jerusalem,
when he established her in her original unity.
Along the ecumenical path to
unity, pride of place certainly belongs to common prayer, the prayerful
union of those who gather together around Christ himself. If Christians,
despite their divisions, can grow ever more united in common prayer around
Christ, they will grow in the awareness of how little divides them in
comparison to what unites them. If they meet more often and more regularly
before Christ in prayer, they will be able to gain the courage to face all the
painful human reality of their divisions, and they will find themselves
together once more in that community of the Church which Christ constantly
builds up in the Holy Spirit, in spite of all weaknesses and human limitations.
23.
Finally, fellowship in prayer leads people to look at the Church and Christianity
in a new way. It must not be forgotten in fact that the Lord prayed to the
Father that his disciples might be one, so that their unity might bear witness
to his mission and the world would believe that the Father had sent him (cf.
Jn 17:21).
It can be said that the ecumenical movement in a certain sense was born out of
the negative experience of each one of those who, in proclaiming the one
Gospel, appealed to his own Church or Ecclesial Community. This was a contradiction
which could not escape those who listened to the message of salvation and found
in this fact an obstacle to acceptance of the Gospel. Regrettably, this grave
obstacle has not been overcome. It is true that we are not yet in full
communion. And yet, despite our divisions, we are on the way towards full
unity, that unity which marked the Apostolic
Church at its birth and
which we sincerely seek. Our common prayer, inspired by faith, is proof of
this. In that prayer, we gather together in the name of Christ who is One. He
is our unity.
"Ecumenical"
prayer is at the service of the Christian mission and its credibility. It must thus be especially present
in the life of the Church and in every activity aimed at fostering Christian
unity. It is as if we constantly need to go back and meet in the Upper Room of
Holy Thursday, even though our presence together in that place will not be
perfect until the obstacles to full ecclesial communion are overcome and all
Christians can gather together in the common celebration of the
Eucharist.44
24.
It is a source of joy to see that the many ecumenical meetings almost always
include and indeed culminate in prayer. The Week of Prayer for Christian
Unity, celebrated in January or, in some countries, around Pentecost, has
become a widespread and well established tradition. But there are also many
other occasions during the year when Christians are led to pray together. In
this context, I wish to mention the special experience of the Pope's pilgrimages
to the various Churches in the different continents and countries of the
present-day oikoumene. I am very conscious
that it was the Second Vatican Council which led the Pope to exercise his
apostolic ministry in this particular way. Even more can be said. The Council
made these visits of the Pope a specific responsibility in carrying out the
role of the Bishop of Rome at the service of communion.45 My visits
have almost always included an ecumenical meeting and common prayer with our
brothers and sisters who seek unity in Christ and in his Church. With
profound emotion I remember praying together with the Primate of the Anglican
Communion at Canterbury Cathedral (29 May 1982); in that magnificent edifice, I
saw "an eloquent witness both to our long years of common inheritance
and to the sad years of division that followed".46 Nor can I
forget the meetings held in the Scandinavian and Nordic Countries (1-10 June
1989), in North and South America and in Africa, and at the headquarters of the
World Council of Churches (12 June 1984), the organization committed to calling
its member Churches and Ecclesial Communities "to the goal of visible
unity in one faith and in one Eucharistic fellowship expressed in worship and
in common life in Christ".47 And how could I ever forget taking
part in the Eucharistic Liturgy in the Church of Saint George at the Ecumenical
Patriarchate (30 November 1979), and the service held in Saint Peter's Basilica
during the visit to Rome of my Venerable Brother, Patriarch Dimitrios
I (6 December 1987)? On that occasion, at the Altar of the Confession, we
recited together the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed according to its original
Greek text. It is hard to describe in a few words the unique nature of each of
these occasions of prayer. Given the differing ways in which each of these
meetings was conditioned by past events, each had its own special eloquence.
They have all become part of the Church's memory as she is guided by the Paraclete to seek the full unity of all believers in
Christ.
25.
It is not just the Pope who has become a pilgrim. In recent years, many
distinguished leaders of other Churches and Ecclesial Communities have visited
me in Rome, and
I have been able to join them in prayer, both in public and in private. I have
already mentioned the visit of the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios
I. I would now like to recall the prayer meeting, also held in Saint Peter's
Basilica, at which I joined the Lutheran Archbishops, the Primates of Sweden
and Finland, for the celebration of Vespers on the occasion of the Sixth
Centenary of the Canonization of Saint Birgitta (5
October 1991). This is just one example, because awareness of the duty to pray
for unity has become an integral part of the Church's life. There is no
important or significant event which does not benefit from Christians coming
together and praying. It is impossible for me to give a complete list of such
meetings, even though each one deserves to be mentioned. Truly the Lord has
taken us by the hand and is guiding us. These exchanges and these prayers have
already written pages and pages of our "Book of unity", a
"Book" which we must constantly return to and re-read so as to draw
from it new inspiration and hope.
26.
Prayer, the community at prayer, enables us always to discover anew the
evangelical truth of the words: "You have one Father" (Mt
23:9), the Father—Abba—invoked by Christ himself, the
Only-begotten and Consubstantial Son. And again: "You have one teacher,
and you are all brethren" (Mt
23:8). "Ecumenical" prayer discloses this fundamental
dimension of brotherhood in Christ, who died to gather together the children of
God who were scattered, so that in becoming "sons and daughters in the
Son" (cf. Eph 1:5) we might show forth
more fully both the mysterious reality of God's fatherhood and the truth about
the human nature shared by each and every individual.
"Ecumenical"
prayer, as the prayer of brothers and sisters, expresses all this. Precisely
because they are separated from one another, they meet in Christ with
all the more hope, entrusting to him the future of their unity and their
communion. Here too we can appropriately apply the teaching of the Council:
"The Lord Jesus, when he prayed to the Father 'that all may be one
... as we are one' (Jn
17:21-22), opened up vistas closed to human reason. For he implied a
certain likeness between the union of the Divine Persons, and the union of
God's children in truth and charity".48
The change of heart which
is the essential condition for every authentic search for unity flows from
prayer and its realization is guided by prayer: "For it is from newness of
attitudes, from self-denial and unstinted love, that
yearnings for unity take their rise and grow towards maturity. We should
therefore pray to the divine Spirit for the grace to be genuinely
self-denying, humble, gentle in the service of others, and to have an attitude
of brotherly generosity towards them".49
27.
Praying for unity is not a matter reserved only to those who actually
experience the lack of unity among Christians. In the deep personal dialogue
which each of us must carry on with the Lord in prayer, concern for unity
cannot be absent. Only in this way, in fact, will that concern fully become
part of the reality of our life and of the commitments we have taken on in the
Church. It was in order to reaffirm this duty that I set before the faithful of
the Catholic Church a model which I consider exemplary, the model of a Trappistine Sister, Blessed Maria Gabriella of Unity,
whom I beatified on 25 January 1983.50 Sister Maria Gabriella, called
by her vocation to be apart from the world, devoted her life to meditation and
prayer centered on chapter seventeen of Saint John's
Gospel, and offered her life for Christian unity. This is truly the cornerstone
of all prayer: the total and unconditional offering of one's life to the
Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. The example of Sister Maria
Gabriella is instructive; it helps us to understand that there are no special
times, situations or places of prayer for unity. Christ's prayer to the Father
is offered as a model for everyone, always and everywhere.
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