Fresh Ecumenical Breezes
Pope Leo XIV at an Anglican Church
So last week, as I wrote about, we were at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown. This week I was back to our more normal place of worship, Restoration Anglican in Arlington.
The Reverend Addie Anderson offered a beautiful sermon on John 10.14-18 and Jesus our Good Shepherd. Jesus said, “14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” Just like Jesus loves us the way the Father loves him (Jn. 15.9), the way the Father knows Jesus is how Jesus knows us. Gorgeous.
Reflecting on the gift of diversity, Addie quoted Pope Leo from his inaugural sermon last Sunday:
Brothers and sisters, I would like that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world….
We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his offer of love and become his one family: in the one Christ, we are one. This is the path to follow together, among ourselves but also with our sister Christian churches…
This is the missionary spirit that must animate us; not closing ourselves off in our small groups, nor feeling superior to the world. We are called to offer God's love to everyone…
His whole sermon is worth a careful (and prayerful) read. It’s so encouraging!
The following Monday, Leo received leaders of “‘other Churches and Ecclesial Communities’, as well as non-Christian religions.” From here:
The new pope commended the “great strides” made by Pope Francis under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in cultivating interreligious and ecumenical dialogue.
“While we are on the journey to reestablishing full communion among all Christians, we recognize that this unity can only be unity in faith,” he stated. “As Bishop of Rome, I consider one of my priorities to be that of seeking the reestablishment of full and visible communion among all those who profess the same faith in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
“The Pope of Fratelli Tutti [Francis] promoted both the ecumenical path and interreligious dialogue,” Leo noted. “May God help us to treasure his witness!”
To be ecumenical is to recognize that in truth there is only one church, with many manifestations and gifts across the different Christian traditions. To be ecumenical is to be open to and long for Christians of different traditions, even with substantive theological differences, to be able to recognize the gifts of the others and that we have need of those perspectives, to recognize that no one Christian tradition is perfect or complete. There is only one Body of Christ (1 Cor 12.4-27). What a glad thing to recognize! This truth keeps our differences in perspective in perspective.
We need more examples of the beautiful reality of the one Body of Christ. We need communities (some exist, some are being born) that celebrate the diversity in the Christian tradition, communities that draw deeply from the old wells and that drink from the fresh waters, communities that benefit from the breadth of the Great Tradition and make it accessible to those who hungry for more.
We need the Holy Spirit, who comes as if a fresh breeze, to do keep doing what the Spirit seems to be already doing. Let us pray to that end, and may we do our part in the Spirit’s work.
To give Pope Leo the last word from that same sermon, “Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love! The heart of the Gospel is the love of God that makes us brothers and sisters.”