Sunday in the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity
St John’s Sandymount.Fr John McKay - 23rd January 2005
Tuesday this week began the Annual Cycle of Prayer for Christian Unity, and I would like to reflect briefly on the observance for two reasons.
First, and sadly, because I feel that it has obviously run out of steam, and lost momentum at least in its present form and expression. This probably reflects a lack of committment at official hierarchal level, which is a pity, but it also may indicate the need for some new way of furthering and expressing the cause of Christian Unity. I said “sadly” because, like many of you I vividly remember those heady days of the Second Vatican Council, when we waited, almost with bated breath for Sean MacRaemon’s latest report from Rome in the newspapers. It was a time when almost anything seemed possible, a time when the Church was at last taking seriously the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ “..that they may all be one.”
Secondly because St John’s, and like it, St Bartholomew’s are ecumenical parishes....it's simply the way they are, without any posturing or affectation. Certainly, over the past two or three decades, my own careful selection of preachers and speakers from as diverse a spectrum of the Christian tradition as possible was consistently followed (and not always without Episcopal censure) in St Barts. I know that this is something which has also been part of the life of St John’s, with a pastoral level of openness and acceptance of people “where they are at” without precondition or renunciation.
The Cycle began last Tuesday, and it comes to its conclusion next Tuesday, the 25th Jan on the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, a feast which recalls that cathartic moment at the gates of Damascus when Saul the Bigot, the Zealot became Paul the missionary and Christ’s Apostle to the Gentiles - a defining moment both for Paul and for the whole Church.
However, Conversion can be a dangerous word to use in ecumenical discussion, because for many Christians ecumenism itself has somehow superceded Conversion, and so to speak of, let alone encourage, Conversion somehow sounds anti—ecumenical.
This is because hitherto, conversion in inter—church terms meant changing allegiance, often with a renunciation of previously held and cherished beliefs and loyalties, and until recent times the churches in these islands (and perhaps particularly this one) cherished a certain triumphalist feeling about converts from other traditions, especially if they were in any way “high profile” people such as clergy or intellectuals; writers or artists or theologians. Such people as Graham Greene, Ronald Knox, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Kenny and of course, Newman are key examples.
Such “institutional” conversions still continue, though not by any means in one direction, (and not sadly for the best reasons, and one thinks particularly of defections on account of the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood). However, in most cases they are to be honoured and respected for what they are “.... honest and often painful searches for a fuller Christian truth.” 1
Pope John Paul chose his words well when in his address to the whole people of this land at Drogheda he said, “People of Ireland, be Converted every day, because every day the Kingdom of God draws nearer”
In biblical, and particularly New Testament terms, Conversion has a more profound and extensive meaning. It is, first of all a turning to God, a change of heart, a metanoia, realignment to the Creator and Redeemer of all creation.
For Christians of courser this Conversion takes place in and through conversion to Jesus Christ, the one ikon and image of that one invisible God in whom the world was both created and redeemed. His one unique sacrifice, remembered, re-enacted and represented in the Eucharist, both converts and reconciles God with the world but also the followers of Jesus with one another. So, at the altar, we celebrate that great moment of Conversion when we are renewed both as sons and daughters of God, and also as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ .... our conversion to one another.
When Fr. Nigel Dunne, who was an assistant priest in St Bart’s went to be Vicar of Blessington, some of his people, and those of the Catholic community went to their respective parish priests when the Unity Week Services were mentioned, and they said, “Look, we know each other, we attend each other’s funerals, we meet in the supermarket and we queue in the Post Office.... we share life at that level, and we don’t want these “made up” services which really mean nothing to any of us. Can we not have, for example, a joint Retreat, perhaps in Lent?” They did have their retreats, a real sign of their “conversion” to each other, a growing together in Common Faith in Christ.
However welcome developments such as Agreed Statements and Theological Accords may be, they require more than a liturgical gesture and the same awful hymns every year. They need the flesh and blood of the common service of Christian people to the needs of all God’s people and God’s world.
The response of Christians of every tradition on this island to the terrible events of the Asian Tsunami is surely a natural response of common humanity, but it offers an innate pattern of Christian service to the needs of all mankind.
1 Prof. Enda McDonagh “Invite and Encourage”