THE TABLET
Jan. 19, 2008

Christian Unity in Action

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

We celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity this week (Jan. 18-25).  In 1908 at Graymoor, Garrison, N.Y., the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement held the first Church Unity Octave and they have prayed for Christian unity, “without ceasing,” ever since.  Today, Christians around the world celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity together, with the encouragement of the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Commission and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. 

The theme this year is “Pray Without Ceasing.”  Truly, over the last hundred years Christians have prayed without ceasing for Christian unity, and not without some results.  Although Christian unity is still in the early stages, we have made tremendous strides in working together, praying and maintaining dialogue regarding issues that separate us.  How important it is that we see this opportunity for prayer as one that cannot be overlooked. 

Our diocesan celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity takes place around Pentecost on a date that will be announced in the future.  As we look to our own situation here in Brooklyn and Queens, we recognize that the opportunities for ecumenical dialogue and also interreligious dialogue are many.  We live in a multi-religious setting; we rub elbows with our neighbors of different faiths daily.  We must take every opportunity to witness to what we believe so that at some time in the future we will realize what Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper, that all may be one.

Over the last several years we have seen greater efforts on the part of Christian churches to promote Christian unity.  Pope John Paul II, of happy memory, in his 1995 encyclical on Christian unity, Ut unum sint, suggested that if Christians, despite their divisions, can grow 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 can more constantly be found in prayer, they will capitalize on opportunities for future unity.

Father Paul Wattson was the founder of the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of Atonement.  He recognized that prayer is the way by which God accomplishes things.  First, He asks His servants to ask, and then by His power He accomplishes the request.  So, the Unity Octave which originated at Graymoor and has spread now throughout the world has a powerful potential to overcome what divides. 

Father Wattson also said that prayer, in its energy and power, can be likened to that invisible something in the material world which we call electricity.  Like the wind, we see its visible effects, but the secrets of its tremendous influence cannot be fathomed.  There are indeed changes in people’s attitudes and that is what we are about during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, a change of attitude toward one another, towards the things that divide us.  Although these can be substantial, it is with will and serious efforts of dialogue that we can come to a better understanding of our true Christian roots.  Through prayer during the octave this week we can truly make a difference.

Next week, on Tuesday, Jan. 22, the 35th annual March for Life will be held in Washington. It has become an opportunity for ecumenical collaboration and also interfaith action. The march commemorates the terrible 1972 U. S. Supreme Court decision of Roe vs. Wade, which made abortion-on-demand legal in our country, something that should be overturned. 

Although for the most part the general population does not favor abortion-on-demand, neither does it wish the elimination of abortion altogether.  So we find ourselves in the midst of a public opinion battle. It is a battle not just for opinion, however, but for the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens. Abortion has become not only a means of terminating one’s pregnancy, but also a means of regulation of birth.  With almost one million abortions occurring each year in our country, we recognize that something is not right and that we must do better to assist women who find themselves in difficult or unwanted pregnancies.  At the same time, we must try to change the policy of government-funded abortions which uses our tax money to perform something we believe to be intrinsically evil.

We pray for Christian unity; however, we must also pray that united ecumenical and interreligious action will have some effect on the future moral fabric of our society.  As we try to remake our moral thinking, we truly “put out into the deep,” since today public opinion, unfortunately, has become the standard of morality.  It is not based on any objective standards, but on convenience and an exaggerated sense of personal freedom.  We must pray without ceasing, as St. Paul told the Thessalonians, and we must do so backed up by action.