This evening our Forty Hours in the parish began with the splendid ceremonies of the Missa Cantata, followed by the Blessed Sacrament Procession and the Litany of the Saints.For my sermon, I emphasised first of all the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ, without which this devotion would be meaningless. I also spoke of the fruits of the Holy Eucharist in terms of our union with Christ and the pledge of future glory, but especially of the unity of the Church. In this respect I was inspired by Fr Zuhlsdorf's post "Whose ecumenism?" in which he suggests that we should start calling Pope Benedict
The Pope of Christian Unity
Pope Benedict has begun to "walk the walk" rather than simply "talk the talk" on ecumenism, providing for the real and concrete prospect of unity with those Anglicans who share our faith. It would be insulting to refer to negotiations with the SSPX as "ecumenism" but the Holy Father has unambiguously set out his motivation for those negotiations as one of wanting to maintain and regain reconciliation and unity. Let me quote the accompanying letter to Summorum Pontificum:
Looking back over the past, to the divisions which in the course of the centuries have rent the Body of Christ, one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden. This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew.A sea-change has come about over the past few days. After decades of resigning ourselves to inoffensive prayer services and polite discussions to understand each other better, Pope Benedict has sent a powerful pulse through the Church to remind us all that the search for Christian Unity has an end result in view: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism", not as a pious ideal among those who courteously disagree, but as a living reality, concretely achieved despite the opposition of the world.
8 comments:
Father, in the penultimate line of your quotation, I think you meant to type "enable" not "unable".
Father,
An inspiring, and possibly inspired, summation of the feelings and thoughts I have had over the past few days. Our Holy Father advocates and desires true Christian unity. I truly pray for the day when the Orthodox faithful will be in full Communion with us. It is not impossible. Nothing is impossible with God.
Strange how the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist has been the cause of many divisions?
Is appears that those who cut themselves away from our Mother the Church are through Silent Witness beginning to see the truth once more. Evangelization is the greatest weapon against Satan and his soul destroying demons. The one thing he does not want is to see the Catholic Church growing in power and bringing back lost sheep.
No doubt in the past 'not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity'. But we must stand strong and look forward and with a leader like Papa Benedict Christian Unity is closer than ever before. The time is right and people are waking up to the damage that is being done to our Church by 'inoffensive prayer services and polite discussions to understand each other better'.
Dear Father Finigan
I would prefer it if Pope Benedict were to be called
"The Unity in the Community Pope"
I listened to 10 minutes of the BBC's Question Time broadcast featuring Jack Straw and Nick Griffin on 5 live. I would liken it to dipping my hand into an open soil pipe. After this stomach churning, nerve shattering experience our poor Country is forced this morning to wash our hands and to clean our dirty washing caused by the viscous sewage overflow.
KKK supporter, and BNP leader Nick Griffin entered the BBC via its back passage. How appropriate that this piece of human excrement should creep into the Question Time studios from a backstabbers position at the rear.
When ONE RACE THE HUMAN RACE kicked the NF/BNP out of its Welling HQ at the Crayford Inquiry in April 1995 it took into account the the parallel piece of psychopathic 'Planning for Real' that saw American neo-Nazis explode the Oklahoma bomb.
The Forty Hours Devotion at Blackfen will be a beacon of light in this surrounding neo-Nazi darkness. At the next General Election former Met Police Inspector Michael Barnbrook, the BNP's Police Spokesman, will be standing as a candidate for MP in Our Lady of the Rosary's Parish, Blackfen , which is in the late Sir Edward Heath's Old Bexley & Sidcup constituency.
This is the first time that you have had this at Blackfen for decades, and it couldn't have come at a more critical time for London.
Our Lady of the Rosary pray for us in BNP leader Nick Griffin MEP's EU/GLA/LDA/ODA NEO-NAZI DEVELOPMENT TIMES Amen
Yours sincerely
Roy Hobson aka Our Lady's Vesper ON-LINE +
More From:www.spreadtheword.org.uk 's cityofsharedstories YouTube - Roy Hobson (From Dark to Light Too)
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DerJimbo - thanks for the correction.
Dear Father Tim,
This is Father Anthony Ho from Vancouver, Canada.
Just want to share with you my latest article for the BC Catholic newspaper in our archdiocese. My article is on "Christian Unity". I quoted you a bit from this post.
I am writing a Chinese-English column for the BC Catholic. And here is a copy of the article at my blog:
http://fatheranthonyho.blogspot.com/2010/01/pax-sinica-article-jan-18-being-one.html
Thank you Father. God bless.
Thank you, Father. That is an excellent article.
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