by Thomas Ryan, C.S.P.
March 24, 2021

This is a time when most Christians have not been able to go to their own church for worship, or, if they do, must do so in limited numbers and sit a good distance from one another. And of course there are no post-liturgy social gatherings as well, so the possibility of prayer and social engagement with members of other churches is even more removed. Thus, is the church’s mission for unity simply in dry-dock during this increasingly long time of the pandemic?

It’s an appropriate time to note that every situation contains hidden blessings. What might one be for us presently with regard to Christian unity? In our zeal for God’s reign on earth as in heaven, we should never ease the cause for unity over to the margins, never rank it as a deferred priority or rest content with the ecumenical status quo (which we might justifiably conclude is still a scandal in God’s eyes).

So what might we do? Well, here’s a suggestion: Make prayer for unity part of our daily practice. But, you might say, if God knows our needs even before we utter them, why pray? Because prayer’s effect is in us. When we pray sincerely and honestly, we dispose ourselves to accept and do God’s will. Prayer is our primary way of growing in intimacy with God. Prayer is the hinge on which the ecumenically-minded Christian’s effectiveness rests. Prayer will always be the soul of ecumenical efforts because it changes hearts. And it is essentially hearts that need to be changed.

To pray for others is to enter into deeper solidarity with them, recognizing that we are members of the same Lord. “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” In the 1960s, the Second Vatican Council identified “change of heart and holiness of life,” along with prayer for unity, as the soul of the ecumenical movement. Without this foundation, all unity initiatives would be in vain. On this very point, Pope John Paul II told a plenary assembly of worldwide consulters of the Secretariat for Christian Unity:

I would like to stress the importance of that which in my view is the essential: prayer. Your efforts—it is necessary to repeat it without ceasing—like those of all Christians desirous of unity across the world, will only produce fruit if they are rooted in an unshakeable disposition of humble seeking after the will of God and of a ready responsiveness to his inspirations, aware that the gift of unity is only given to the Church by virtue of its participation in the prayer of the Son to the Father: that all may be one. ¹

If Christian unity is not currently a reality of our lives, it’s fundamentally because we are searching after unity without first having abandoned our hearts, our souls and our minds into the hands of God. When God inhabits us, when God’s presence is manifested in us, our lives are filled with the attributes of God. Thus, we must first of all look within for unity, not without to discussions and dialogues. When we pray for unity, can we entrust ourselves (egos, defenses, ambitions—all) and our traditions (blessed diversities, theological disagreements—all) completely into God’s hands and be open to God’s will?

The annual January 18-25 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is not simply a way to dramatize our ecumenical concerns. It’s not simply a moment to render visible our convictions about church unity. It is not simply a response to the psychological insight that, if we can do this together, we may perhaps overcome our inhibitions about doing other things together. It is, of course, all these things. But most fundamentally, it is an occasion when we express our belief in the power of prayer. And once we believe in this, it makes all the sense in the world for us to offer a prayer every day for an increasingly visible unity among ourselves as brothers and sisters in Christ.

We need to speak of God together to a world that is thirsting for God. We need to be a common sign that God is here. In so doing, God will be with us and the unity that radiates from God’s life will mark our own. To the extent that we are genuinely looking for God, we will find unity. Progress will not come primarily from the “outside”. The doctrinal or organizational strategies concocted by the most diligent of our commissions and the most brilliant of our theologians will not, in the last analysis, bring us to unity. It will be the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers. As expressed in one of my favorite daily prayers , unity begins on the “inside.”

O Holy and Eternity Trinity,
We pray to you for your church in the world.
Sanctify its life. Empower its witness.
Heal its divisions. Make visible its unity.
Lead us, with all our brothers and sisters,
towards communion in faith, life & witness
so that united in the one body
by the one Spirit, we may together witness
to the perfect unity of your love.

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Thomas Ryan, C.S.P. directs the Paulist National Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations located in Boston. 

 

Notes: