{"id":32230,"date":"2016-01-22T05:21:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T11:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=32230"},"modified":"2016-01-21T17:47:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T23:47:56","slug":"brothers-and-sisters-living-in-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2016\/01\/22\/brothers-and-sisters-living-in-unity\/","title":{"rendered":"Brothers and Sisters Living in Unity"},"content":{"rendered":"

This reflection was offered at a prayer service at St. John’s School of Theology and Seminary yesterday by Cody Maynus, M.Div. student who is studying for ministry in The Episcopal Church.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wherever Pope Francis goes, he brings with him pleasant surprises. One such surprise – a surprise, at least, to me – came during his recent address to congress. Speaking to a body composed of diversity – perhaps not rich<\/em> diversity, but some diversity nevertheless – the Pope cited four exemplary Americans: a Baptist preacher, a Spiritual-But-Not-Religious President, a radical Catholic laywoman, and a Trappist monk from the great Commonwealth of Kentucky.<\/p>\n

The last – Thomas Merton – was of most interest to me. What about Merton – his character, his theology, his spirituality – did the Pope wish to convey? He called Merton \u201cabove all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pope commended to the United States Congress – to the American people, and to the whole world – a man known primarily for his prayer. Not for his intelligence, his drive, his ingenuity, his entrepreneurialism, his innovation. Not any of those things. Pope Francis gave to us a man whose very life was a prayer for unity – unity with God and with one another.<\/p>\n

The whole Church of God keeps with joy – and naturally with some sorrow – this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. We celebrate the many similarities between Christians of various traditions, recognizing that, as Christians, we are, as the writer of First Peter says, \u201ca holy nation, a royal priesthood.\u201d We proclaim together \u201cthe Mighty Acts of God\u201d and rejoice in our common heritage as daughters and sons of the Covenant. We also repent for the ways in which we all – Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox – fall short of God\u2019s vision of unity, a vision which sustained Jesus on his way to Calvary. We use this week – and, ideally, our whole lives – to pray for sincere humility and genuine conversion.<\/p>\n

But Christian unity does not end there. No, indeed, we must think of unity in Christ as extending beyond denominations and into every aspect of our lives. Likewise, we rejoice in our commonalities, honor our differences, and pray always for humility and conversion.<\/p>\n

Where better to celebrate, honor, and pray for unity among Christians than right here in Collegeville, than in this community which we call, for ever or for a short while, home? While we could – and, indeed, should – <\/em>press for more diversity in our faculty and student body, we can appreciate the variety of religious and cultural expressions represented in this very room. This community of ministers, theological thinkers, and religious seekers has within it some of the best and most painful aspects of human diversity.\u00a0We are Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, evangelicals. We are straight and gay, queer and questioning. Bound for Holy Orders, bound for lay ecclesial ministry, bound for the academy.\u00a0High church, low church, charismatic, orthodox, traditional, ambivalent. Certain, confused, frightened, anxious, obnoxious, content. Benedictines, Crosiers, Trappists, Cistercians.<\/p>\n

And our task? To live together – somehow, to live<\/u> together<\/u>, study<\/u> together<\/u>, pray<\/u> together<\/u>, – recognizing where we already are one, naming the ways and spaces which cause division, and hoping – longing<\/em> even – for a day when all divisions will cease and where we will be free to be God\u2019s own people, to live in the light to which God calls us. That\u2019s fine and good to say – even to preach or pray – but how exactly can that be realized?<\/p>\n

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut,\u201d says Thomas Merton of one of many conversion moments. \u201cin the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers\u2026I have the immense joy of being [human], a member of a race in which God\u2026became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How do we bring about Christian unity exactly? What will remove from us, as in the reading, \u201call malice, all guile, insincerity, envy, and slander?\u201d What will wipe away, as Merton calls it, \u201cthe sorrows and stupidities of the human condition\u201d?<\/p>\n

We must return to our common heritage – to that which invites – begs, even – us to consider unity important in the first place: namely our baptism.<\/p>\n

We are made one – in a very real sense – through baptism.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis, just yesterday in Rome, reminded all Christians that our one baptism is the \u201csacramental bond of unity which links all who have been reborn by it.\u201d He called baptism \u201can indissoluble bond between\u2026Christians, such that, by virtue of baptism, we can consider ourselves truly brothers [and sisters.]\u201d If we are to live and pray and study together – here in this place and in the Church – then we must cling with dear life to that \u201cindissoluble bond between\u2026Christians,\u201d a bond so powerful, says the Pope, that all Christians must think of themselves as \u201ctruly the Holy People of God, even if\u2026we are not yet a people fully united.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clinging to our baptism and the rebirth granted in those waters – the very waters which were sprinkled (or rather, doused) [laughter] <\/em>on us moments ago – we are free to dream together, to pray together, to struggle together, knowing that we are, indeed, proclaiming with our lives the most mighty act of God: sisters and brothers living together in unity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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