When I was younger, I used to believe that all the great Catholic Christians of history would have been Protestants if they had only had the opportunity or sound teaching. The more I read of their writing, the more I understand that they were truly Catholic with all the particular quirks of Catholic spirituality. Many of my favorite writers are from the Counter-Reformation and they spoke out strongly against the reformers. I often like to think of them in heaven, singing next to the Wesley brothers.
Source: Amy Cogdell - Personal correspondence
How Streams Of Living Water Become Isolated
The astonishing new reality in this mighty flow of the Spirit is how sovereignly God is bringing together streams of life that have been isolated from one another for a very long time. This isolation is completely understandable from a historical perspective. Over the centuries, some precious teaching or vital experience is neglected until, at the appropriate moment, a person or movement arises to correct the omission. Numbers of people come under the renewed teaching, but soon vested interests and a host of other factors come into play, producing resistance to the renewal, and the new movement is denounced. In time it forms its own structures and community life, often in isolation from other Christian communities.
Source: Richard Foster - Streams of Living Water, p. xv
Latasha Morrison
Ultimately the name [Be the Bridge] came from a conversation I had with God on my way to attending the IF conference in 2014. In the middle of feelings homesick for Atlanta, I remember God telling me, “I brought you to Austin to be a bridge.” I used to say that phrase “be the bridge” to my staff, back when I was in the African American church in Atlanta. We were in-between: We weren’t traditionally an African American church, but we weren’t a white church, either. We knew how to fit in both worlds and be comfortable.
Source: Latasha Morrison - As quoted in Christianity Today, "Latasha Morrison: The Church Is the ‘Only Place Equipped to Do Racial Reconciliation Well’", interview by Morgan Lee, January 2017, http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/january/latasha-morrison-church-is-only-place-equipped-to-do.html
Michael Tessman
The fractious church culture to which we've long become accustomed corrodes our witness to Christ, reduced churches to outsized institutional principalities seeking survival, and renders the mandate to love one another to a hollow, empty suggestion. Reconciliation is the latest buzzword commanding fine rhetoric and much spilling of ink, yet the ecclesial bodies bearing Christ's name cannot demonstrate how it is done. They have no authority to preach it to a world starving for it. Time's overdue for a truth and reconciliation commission for the churches combined.
Source: Michael Tessman - Letter to the editor, Sojourners, June 2019
Fearless Giant & Pioneer
Fr. Peter Hocken died. Fearless giant and a pioneer among the Catholic Charismatics who walked with all Christians and Messianic Jews while making the desire of Jesus in John 17 to make us one reality of his every day.
This is very sad news for all of us who are into building ecumenical pathways but we hope his intercession will accelerate our work now.
Source: MajorChange - Posted on FB on 10 June 2017
A Pastor Publicly Repents
But what made their situation truly remarkable is what Andrew did the Sunday after Susan and Elaine came to talk with him.
With Susan’s permission, he described their conversation to the entire congregation, commending Susan for her graciousness and courage as well as Elaine for her wisdom and advice.
And then he said this:
“As I’ve reflected on what Susan told me about my behavior toward her, I realized I’ve probably treated other people in our church with the same kind of pride, thoughtlessness and impatience. So I’m asking for your forgiveness today as well. If you need to talk with me about how I’ve treated you, my door is open. Please pray that God would help me to become more sensitive to how I’m treating others, and if you see me stumble, please do me the favor of pointing it out so I can continue to grow.”
Source: Ken Sande - "Public Confession is Counterintuitive", Relational Wisdom 360 eNewsletter, 7 August 2016
https://rw360.org/2016/08/07/public-confession-counterintuitive/
The Humility of Fr. Magill (part 2)
Fr Martin Magill’s Ecumenical Tithing: Rosemary Presbyterian Church
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When I used to live in North Belfast, over 15 years ago, I was a regular visitor to events at Rosemary Presbyterian church. I returned there, this time to the church halls, for evening worship. I spoke to a number of people I remembered from that time.
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As I reflect on the whole experience, I recognise how good it was to worship with people I had known over 15 years ago. I had a number of conversations reflecting on the area and the challenge for the churches in North Belfast I detected a keenness for the churches to work together. I heard about a prayer course based on the ideas of the 24/7 prayer initiative which was open to all the Christian denominations in the area. I also found it helpful to hear about discipleship because the gospel passage which I will preach on from the Common Lectionary comes from Matthew 28 and the command of Jesus to make disciples.
Source: Fr. Martin Magill - As quoted by Gladys Ganiel on her blog Building a Church Without Walls, 2014, http://www.gladysganiel.com/irish-catholic-church/fr-martin-magills-ecumenical-tithing-rosemary-presbyterian/
The Love of Christ Compels Us to Reconcile
Some of us are old enough to remember when we Catholics were regularly instructed not to attend the funerals or weddings of our Protestant neighbors, relatives or friends. It was an awkward time to be sure because the human heart seeks to be united to loved ones in such moments of great sorrow and deep joy. I believe that it is the grace of the Holy Spirit that urges us to seek some expression of ecclesial union at those moments.
Source: Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory - The Georgia Bulletin, "The love of Christ compels us to reconcile", 26 Jan 2017, https://georgiabulletin.org/commentary/2017/01/love-christ-compels-us-reconcile/ (ALSO IN SPANISH at https://georgiabulletin.org/commentary/2017/01/el-amor-de-cristo-nos-apremia-reconciliarnos/?lang=es)
Resourcing From The Tradition
Pastor Packiam’s desire for something deeper came from a painful period in New Life’s history. After Pastor Haggard’s fall from grace in 2006, Pastor Packiam says, “I became concerned about the way evangelical worship highlighted an individual at the center of it all”—the celebrity pastor. He began reading books by authors like Henri Nouwen and Eugene Peterson, “I realized that something was missing in our worship; and that something was Eucharist, was sacramentality.” He looked at Anglican, Orthodox and Presbyterian churches but decided to stay and help his congregation “resource from the tradition.” For him, “This is a move of the Spirit toward theological depth and historicity.”
Source: Anna Keating - Online article in America - The Jesuit Review, 2 May 2019
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/05/02/why-evangelical-megachurches-are-embracing-some-catholic-traditions
The Humility of Fr. Magill (part 1)
Fr Magill’s determination to push the boundaries in terms of ecumenical outreach is evident from his practice of what the late Michael Hurley SJ called “ecumenical tithing”.
This means that part of his time each week, usually on a Sunday afternoon or evening is devoted to worshipping in another Christian denomination, sometimes St George’s Church of Ireland in Belfast “a very beautiful very high church”.
He believes this commitment comes from “the imperative I get from Jesus Christ in John 17”.
Fr Magill reveals that it is “only a matter of time before I will worship in a Free Presbyterian church as part of ecumenical tithing”.
He is also working on a list of ten things that Catholics can learn from other denominations and “top of the list is welcoming because 90% of churches do welcoming better then we Catholics”, followed by singing.
Source: Martin O'Brien - "A Quiet Peacemaker", The Irish Catholic, 11 Dec 2014, http://www.irishcatholic.ie/article/quiet-peacemaker
Richard Harvey on Luther
My encounter with Martin Luther brought into sharp focus the place of Luther in the tradition of Christian anti-Judaism and popular anti-semitism in a way that has challenged my own faith perspective, my ability to forgive Luther and Lutherans for the sufferings brought about by him on my people, and a strong desire to see reconciliation between Lutherans, Jews and Jewish Christians today.
Source: Richard Harvey - "A Messianic Jew Looks at Luther", https://lutherandthejews.com/2017/02/09/a-messianic-jew-looks-at-luther/
If Repentance Is Not Part Of Your Life ...
You may call yourself a committed Christian, but if repentance is not part of your life, you are in a dangerous place. Remember Jesus' verdict on the church at Sardis: "You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead" (Rev 3:1). To be spiritually alive is to walk in repentance. Dead are those Christians who are never sorry for their sins. Dead - in God's eyes - are those Christians who have lost the capacity for the overflowing joy of forgiveness. If this is missing, something is wrong with our lives, no matter how committed we seem. Being human, we are all prone to sin and stand in constant need of forgiveness. We need repentance like the air we breathe.
Source: M. Basilea Schlink - Repentance: The Joy-Filled Life, pp. 20-21
Pope: "Luther took a great step by ..."
Asked what Catholics can learn from Lutherans and what they should value of the Lutheran tradition, Pope Francis responded, “Two words come to my mind: reform and Scripture.”
At a “difficult time for the church,” Martin Luther tried “to remedy a complex situation,” the pope said, but for a variety of reasons, including political pressure, his reform movement triggered the division of the church. But Luther’s intuition was not altogether wrong, the pope said, because the church is called to be “‘semper reformanda’ (always reforming).”
In addition, he said, “Luther took a great step by putting the Word of God into the hands of the people” and giving them the Bible in their language, rather than in Latin.
Source: Pope Francis - Quoted by Catholic News Service in "Pope on why he’s going to Sweden: ‘Closeness does all of us good’", 28 Oct 2016, https://cnstopstories.com/2016/10/28/pope-on-why-hes-going-to-sweden-closeness-does-all-of-us-good/
Callaway's Lynching
Callaway's lynching lived in whispers among African-Americans of that era. As they passed on, in the absence of official records, media accounts or a gravestone, Callaway faded from the town's collective memory.
Almost no one in LaGrange today knew Austin Callaway's name until recently -- not his descendants, not the local NAACP president, not the mayor, not even Police Chief Louis Dekmar.
As the chief learned more about the lynching, he came to understand how it strained relations between his force and the African-American community. He decided it was time to apologize for law enforcement's role and acknowledge its impact on community relations.
"The past shapes the present," he said in an interview before the event.
Source: Emanuella Grinberg, CNN - "'Justice failed Austin Callaway': Town attempts to atone for 1940 lynching", Emanuella Grinberg, CNN, 28 Jan 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/us/lagrange-georgia-callaway-1940-lynching/index.html
1st Time Since Reformation
For the first time since the Reformation, the Evangelical Church in Germany, which represents the vast majority of Protestants in that country, has invited the pope to visit their homeland, the nation where the Reformation began. An ecumenical delegation from Germany visited Pope Francis in the Vatican on Feb. 6 as part of the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of that event.
Source: Gerard O'Connell - "German Evangelical Church issues historic invite to Pope Francis", America : The Jesuit Review, 6 Feb 2017, http://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/02/06/german-evangelical-church-issues-historic-invite-pope-francis
A Catholic Cardinal Honors Protestant Anabaptists
The Bruderhof is an international Christian community of almost 3,000 people in 23 settlements on four continents. Their goal is radical discipleship in the spirit of the first days of the Church in Jerusalem.
From eight years of friendship with Pastor Arnold, his wonderful wife, Verena, and the hundreds of members centered at Woodcrest in Rifton, I can tell you they are “a light to the world.” I love them, and have learned much from them, and my predecessors claimed the same. As the late Father Benedict Groeschel whispered to me, “They’re better Catholics than I am!”
Source: Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan - "Radical Discipleship Lived in Our Midst", Catholic New York, 27 April 2017, http://www.cny.org/stories/radical-discipleship-lived-in-our-midst,15453
Reformed Churches Join *The Joint Doctrine on Justification by Faith*
“A new phase of friendship and cooperation, said Pope Francis, on welcoming the adherence of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) to the ecumenical consensus on the Doctrine of Justification, on July 5, 2017 at Wittenberg in Germany, where Luther’s Reformation began in 1517.
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Monsignor Brian Farrell, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, represented the Catholic Church at the signing. He read a message of Pope Francis who welcomed it as “an eloquent sign of our commitment to continue together, as brothers and sisters in Christ, on the path from conflict to communion, from division to reconciliation.”
Source: Anne Kurian - "Pope Welcomes Adherence of the Reformed Churches to the Declaration on Justification", Zenit, 14 July 2017, https://zenit.org/articles/pope-welcomes-adherence-of-the-reformed-churches-to-the-declaration-on-justification/
1995
For Catholics it is easy to recognize 1995 as a key moment, being the year of the issue of John Paul II's encyclical letter on ecumenism, Ut Unum Sint. This may be the only papal encyclical that begins with a personal declaration: "I carry out this duty with the profound conviction that I am obeying the Lord, and with a clear sense of my own human frailty."
Source: Fr. Peter Hocken - Pentecost and Parousia, Peter Hocken - p. 63 [Ut Unum Sint 4]
"Enormous Avalanche of Wrongs"
As for the freedom that comes from owning up to one's faults, Steve, an old friend of mine, says:
… The pivotal experience came inexplicably and unexpectedly: I was suddenly aware what an enormous avalanche of wrongs I had left behind me. Before, this reality had been masked by pride adn by my wanting to look good in front of others. But now, memories of everything I had ever done wrong poured out of me like a river of bile. All I wanted was to be free, to have nothing dark and ugly and hidden within me; I wanted to make good, wherever I could, the wrongs I had done. I had no excuses for myself - youth, circumstances or bad peers. I was responsibile for what I had done. On one page after another I poured it all out in clear detail. I felt as though an angel of repentance was slashing at my heart with his sword, such was the pain. I wrote dozens of letters to people and organizations I had cheated, stolen from, and lied to. Finally I felt truly free.
Source: Johann Christoph Arnold - Why Forgive?, pp.168-169
Chip & Johanna
The Gaines shared, “Our family has made a commitment to put Christ first, a lifestyle our parents modeled for us very well. They showed us how to keep our marriage and family centered around God.
As for ‘Fixer Upper,’ we have been surprised at the impact of our faith through the show. We haven’t been overtly evangelical, but the rich feedback we have received on family and love all source from our faith. Jesus said the world would know His disciples by their love for one another, and we’ve glimpsed this in practice and strive for it every day.”
Source: Chip & Joanna Gaines - On CBS Sunday Morning, http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-couple-behind-fixer-upper/ , as quoted on http://qpolitical.com/1-chip-joanna-gaines-changing-america-easy-see/