Diocese of Toledo, Ohio

Browsing From the Pastor

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

THE WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY starts this coming Thursday, January 18th, and runs through Thursday, January 25th.

   Many of us come from and/or live in families in which family members identify themselves with different Christian faith communities. Shortly before He died, our Lord earnestly prayed for oneness in faith and life for all who love Him.

The tragic divisions among Christians cripple the impact that the Christian community as a whole might have upon the life of the world community.

   Let’s look at what we can do to promote healing within the fragmented Christian Community as a whole. 1) Let’s first and foremost continue to pray faithfully for the unity of all Christians. 2) Prayer enables us to assume the best about other Christian faith communities. All Christian churches have as their ultimate goal that of equipping their members to experience the fullness of eternal life that Christ has won for all people. 3) Let’s look for people to honor and support who are giving outward expression to the life of Christian discipleship regardless of the Christian faith community with which they identify themselves. I’ve served in Catholic schools in which non-Catholic students received an award for exemplary Christian attitudes and behavior. 4) Let’s continue to work with other Christians and all people of good will to promote the well-being of the world community as a whole, such as striving to eliminate poverty, starvation and diseases, to preserve the environment and to protect and safeguard human life from the moment of conception until the time of natural death. 5) We promote the work of Christian Unity (ecumenism) as we strive to learn where as Catholics we derive all that we believe, teach and strive to practice. As we understand where we are coming from, we can be proactive in working to learn from where other non-Catholic Christian communities derive all that they believe, teach and practice.

   Studying our own faith tradition and that of others helps us to appreciate practical areas in which we still need to work to promote full Christian unity. For example, Christians do not yet agree about what makes a person eligible to enter into biblical, sacramental marriage. The Catholic Church insists that all baptized Catholics who are called to the sacrament of marriage go through the marriage preparation program which the Catholic Church offers if their marriages are to be recognized by the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church in good conscience simply cannot recognize the validity of certain marriages that are acknowledged to be valid in other non-Catholic Christian faith communities.   

   At this point, Christians do not fully agree about the sources from which we derive all that we believe, teach and strive to practice. Catholics believe that the total living Tradition of the Church, within which the books of the Bible are key expressions of the Faith of the Church, constitutes the source from which Catholics derive all that we believe, teach and strive to practice. A number of non-Catholics downplay and sometimes even distrust certain non-directly biblical developments of the Tradition of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.  

   Because Catholics believe that Christ instituted the Eucharist as an outward expression of the oneness in faith and life of all of His disciples, and because the fragmented situation of the Christian community as a whole contradicts this, Catholics are asked to refrain from receiving communion in non-Catholic churches. Also, as priests, we are not free to invite non-Catholic Christians to receive communion at Catholic Masses. Practicing inter-communion at this point contradicts the present reality of Christian life as we now experience this.

   Let’s continue to pray and to work together to promote that oneness of faith and life for which our Lord prayed for all who love Him.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Fr. Nelson Beaver – Pastor   

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