"A Catholic Spy"

Then I caught sight of a Catholic spy in the Protestant camp: a gold cross atop the pole of the church flag. Adoring Christ required using that symbol. The alternative was the froth. My gratitude to the Catholic Church for this one relic, this remnant, of her riches, was immense. For this good Protestant water to flow, there had to be Catholic aqueducts. To change the metaphor, I had been told that reliance on external things was a "crutch!" I now realized that I was a cripple. And I thanked the Catholic "hospital" (that's what the Church is) for responding to my needs.

Source: Peter Kreeft  -  Hauled aboard the Ark, http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/hauled-aboard.htm

Peter Kreeft - Bridges

Ever since, I've found that this choice to come aboard the ark is just about the best thing I ever did.  I've ever since thought of it as my main vocation, to build bridges between Catholics and non-Catholics.  I was a signer of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together statement, and support that very strongly.  I love somebody like C. S. Lewis whom almost all evangelical Protestants love, and almost all faithful Roman Catholics love.  St. Augustine's another one; Catholics and Protestants both love him.

Source: Peter Kreeft  -  Conversion to Catholicism, Catholic Education Resource Center, http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/dr-peter-kreeft-s-conversion-to-catholicism-part-2.html

School of Prayer

SCHOOL OF PRAYER will encompass courses online, prayer workshops and sessions/meetings to develop lay prayer spirituality that suits families and singles. Topics and themes will go around prayer, intercession, praise and worship and chanting, prophetic, creative expressions, meditation, contemplation, various traditional spiritualities’ prayer approaches: Desert Fathers and Benedictine with Lectio Divina and contemplative aspects, Dominican with the contemplative, Carmelite with the prophetic, supernatural and contemplative aspects, Jesuit with meditation and discernment aspects, Franciscan with mystical and creational aspects etc. New and Old expressions of prayer combined will bring a new sound of praise.

When we learn how to cultivate the Presence in our hearts which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, we can start communal worship practices of Liturgy the of the Hours (Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer), Adoration with silence, singing Lectio Divina (also known as Worship with the Word in a harp and bowl model of prayer), Intercession, contemporary praise and worship with its charismatic/contemplative expressions.

Source: Stone to Flesh Community  -  School of Prayer page on the Stone to Flesh / MajorChange website
https://stonetoflesh.org/school-of-prayer

Adam's Story

I had never heard of the Wittenberg 2017 movement until just yesterday, when a friend from a church we used to attend in Austin, TX asked my wife and I to share our story among a small gathering of friends. You see, Julia is a non-denominational Protestant, and I a Roman Catholic - both of us practicing Christians, happily married for four years.
 
Having read Amy Cogdell's story, I am struck to my heart; the pain felt by our Lord over the disunion of the Church on Earth is an all-too-present tension felt by the two of us. Still, we continue to thrive in faith with Christ Jesus together, by attending both Mass and church services every Sunday together. Though we have few theological disagreements and rarely let our emotions over our beliefs conquer our tongues, we continuously pray for union and peace from God for the whole Church to overcome the powers of division.

Source: Wittenberg 2017  -  "Adam's Story", from the Wittenberg 2017 (US) website
http://www.wittenberg2017.us/adamrsquos-story.html

Mateo Calisi

"Mateo Calisi…developed contacts in Argentina with local Evangelical and Pentecostal leaders, with whom a new body was formed; the movement known as CRECES (literally, Renewed Communion of Catholics and Evangelicals in the Holy Spirit). From the beginning, Catholic archbishop of Buenos Aries, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, now Pope Francis, supported CRECES. Cardinal Bergoglio played a regular part in CRECES gatherings, and was prayed over by leading Pentecostal pastors.... Pope Francis is the first bishop of Rome to have had regular and warm relationships with Evangelical and Pentecostal leaders. This closeness is reflected in the welcome given to Cardinal Bergoglio's election as bishop of Rome by a leading Argentinian Pentecostal, Dr. Norberto Saracco: 'Bergoglio is a man of God. He is passionate for the unity of the church—but not just at the institutional level. His priority is unity at the level of the people.'"

Source: Norberto Saracco  -  As quoted by Fr. Peter Hocken in Pentecost and Parousia, p. 69

Sagging Fences, Dilapidated Name Badges

The living God has reached into the post-Reformation Church and has begun tearing apart the sagging fences that have mapped our territories and discarding the badges that have named us. This is happening to the entire Church, and for that reason we should not be talking about the future of Protestantism but about the Church of the future. If we focus on the future of our particular enterprise, we perpetuate the tribalism we should renounce. If we rebuild what God is destroying, are we not transgressors?

Source: Peter Leithart  -  First Things, "The Future of Protestantism: The Churches Must Die to be Raised Anew", August 2014, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/08/the-future-of-protestantism

Growing Up w/ Living Side-by-Side

With the benefit of hindsight, Fr Magill (53), one of the region’s best known priests and a regular broadcaster and tweeter, thinks that his love for ecumenical endeavour stems from his upbringing in the religiously mixed townland of Ballymacilhoyle close to the international airport at Aldergrove.

“Where I grew up it was normal for Catholics, Presbyterians, Church of Ireland and Methodists to live side by side.”

Source: Martin O'Brien  -  "A Quiet Peacemaker", The Irish Catholic, 11 Dec 2014, http://www.irishcatholic.ie/article/quiet-peacemaker

What made them "one in heart and mind"?

On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:

‘Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.’

... Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. All the believers were one in heart and mind.



Source: Bible  -  Acts 4:24-30

"As a descendant of these people ..."

The unusual meeting between Reiner and Chaika was held recently in the Israeli city of Netanya, as part of the activity of German organization March of Life. About 100 Belarus-born Holocaust survivors, wearing caps and glasses and wrapped in their coats, faced some 10 young Germans, tall and good-looking, the descendants of Nazi soldiers and officers. The former spoke about their horrible experiences in the Holocaust, and the latter told them about their families’ grim history.

Surprisingly, there was no anger in this intergenerational meeting, just a lot of sadness and a bit of comfort, for both sides.
...
The 25-year-old Samuel Haas took the microphone and said, “My grandparents were Nazis. One of them handed out printed propaganda information, and the other three traveled across Europe as part of their job in the Wehrmacht army. They murdered, robbed and looted. And as a descendant of these people, I would like to stand on Israeli soil and say out loud that we must not let such a thing happen again. I want to expose my family’s story and support Israel and the war on anti-Semitism.”
 
Haas’ comments reflect the solidarity at the heart of this event and the agreement that such meetings will help guarantee that horrible events like the Holocaust will never repeat themselves.
 

Source: Itay Ilnai  -  "Nazis’ descendants sing ‘Hatikva’ to Holocaust survivors", Ynet News, 6 Jan 2017, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4902914,00.html

Paul Pleads For ...

(2) I plead with Euodia and Syntyche to agree with each other (be of the same mind) in the Lord. (3) Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women because they have labored side by side with me for the cause of the gospel (good news) of Christ, along with Clement and the rest of my ministry partners, whose names are written in the book of life!

Source: The Apostle Paul  -  Philippians 4:2-3

Madeleine L'Engle

How often we children have been unwilling: unwilling to listen to each other, unwilling to hear words we do not expect. But on that first Pentecost the Holy Spirit truly called the people together in understanding and forgiveness and utter, wondrous joy. The early Christians, then, were known by how they loved one another. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people could say that of us again? Not an exclusive love, shutting out the rest of the world, but love so powerful, so brilliant, so aflame that it lights the entire planet – nay, the entire universe!

Source: Madeleine L’Engle  -  As quoted by John Armstrong on the Costly Love FB page, 24 May 2017

Traci Blackmon

Echoing Carter’s concerns was Traci Blackmon, acting executive minister of justice and witness for the United Church of Christ. A well-known speaker on race and religion, Blackmon offered a pastoral presence in Ferguson, Mo., following the fatal police shooting of black teenager Michael Brown in 2014.

“It often seems like justice can take forever. But we cannot give up. We cannot quit,” she said.

Prayer is an essential component in the struggle but is most effective when we “pray with our feet,” Blackmon said, quoting the 19th-century social reformer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass: “I prayed for freedom for 20 years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

“God so desires our obedience and cooperation that God is unwilling to carry out God’s purposes until men and women have energized and honored their participatory role in their own prayers,” she said.

“I am not suggesting that work and prayer are the same thing. Work is not a substitute for prayer. They are not to be equated but neither are they to be separated. Prayer must include the obedience of one’s conviction and a willingness to seek that which is good and just. Dormant prayer must not be a substitute for action.”

Blackmon said those advocating for racial justice could take hope in a parable found in the Gospel of Luke describing an unjust judge who neither feared God nor respected people, but who nevertheless granted justice to a widow who persisted until she received it. Though the text explicitly says the judge never “changed his heart or mind,” the widow’s dogged persistence effected a change in his behavior.

Source: Traci Blackmon  -  As quoted by Robert Dilday, "Racial reconciliation tough but essential, say leaders at New Baptist Covenant summit", Baptist News Global, 19 September 2016, https://baptistnews.com/article/racial-reconciliation-tough-but-essential-say-leaders-at-new-baptist-covenant-summit/

Michael Phelps & The Purpose-Driven Life

Phelps told ESPN that the book "turned me into believing there is a power greater than myself and there is a purpose for me on this planet." Warren's book also convinced Phelps to reconcile with his estranged father, Fred, who divorced his wife when Phelps was just 9 years old. When the two men saw each other for the first time after so many years of separation, they embraced in a big hug. After he left Meadows in November 2014, Phelps resumed training for the Rio Olympics.

Source: Hazel Torres  -  As quoted in Christian Today, http://www.christiantoday.com/article/legendary.u.s.swimmer.michael.phelps.reveals.how.purpose.driven.life.by.rick.warren.saved.his.life/92191.htm

The Real Questions

… there were not separate denominational movements of Holy Spirit renewal.  There was one movement of the Holy Spirit touching Christians of every tradition.  The real questions are:

  • For the existing churches:  How do we as churches respond to this one ecumenical movement of God's Holy Spirit?

  • For participants:  How do we as Christians baptized in the Spirit and part of an ecumenical work of God across all of the churches relate this grace to our own church tradition and to our lives as committed church members?


Source: Fr. Peter Hocken  -  One Lord One Spirit One Body, pp.59

Foxhole Ecumenism

In the U.S. we have seen a foxhole ecumenism develop during the culture wars. Evangelical Protestants—historically the most anti-Catholic sector of the American Church—meet vibrantly faithful Catholics on the pro-life picket line, while Catholics realize that their best allies for upholding the definition of marriage happen to be Evangelicals. Old boundaries become permeable as theological differences get swallowed up in co-belligerency.

What happens at the picket line happens in seminaries and pastors’ studies. These days Protestant pastors read papal encyclicals for edification, and Western Christians discover unexpected wealth in the works of Orthodox liturgists. From the Catholic side, Vatican II, for all its excesses and false moves, has made the Catholic Church sound more Protestant because it has become more attuned to common biblical and patristic sources. Swimming the Tiber has become a popular Evangelical sport, partly because of the manifest attractions of Catholicism, partly because the Catholic Church is more hospitable to Evangelical concerns than anyone could have imagined in 1870 or 1950.

Source: Peter Leithart  -  First Things, "The Future of Protestantism: The Churches Must Die to be Raised Anew", August 2014, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/08/the-future-of-protestantism

Fr. Peter Hocken

In Francis, says Hocken, there is a “new emphasis on the creativity of the Holy Spirit,” reminding people that while some things may stay the same, nothing is ever merely repeated, and that God is constantly doing new things.
That can often be missed, he says, by Catholics anxious to find a precedent for everything in past tradition - yet tradition is precisely made up of the new things God has done for His Church.
But maybe it takes the Holy Spirit to see that.

Source: Austen Ivereigh  -  "Jubilee in Rome highlights charismatic fruits in Francis’s Pentecost papacy", Crux, 3 June 2017, https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/06/03/jubilee-rome-highlights-charismatic-fruits-franciss-pentecost-papacy/

Patriarch Bartholomew

 According to a new report from the Union of Orthodox Journalists, during his trip to Mt. Athos the previous month, Pat.  Bartholomew attempted to convince several Athonite abbots and monks that there are no dogmatic differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and that reunion with the Catholic church is inevitable.

Pat. Bartholomew expressed his personal convictions during a private talk at Pantocrator Monastery with the brethren and guests of the monastery, including other Athonite abbots. Eyewitnesses report that Pat. Bartholomew’s security did not allow anyone to record the conversation.

In his opinion, the division that now exists between Orthodoxy and Catholicism is merely a matter of historical events, not dogmatic differences.

 Catholics “are just as Christian as we are,” Pat. Bartholomew emphasized, adding that the recent gift of the relics of St. Peter from Pope Francis is proof of the Catholic church’s nearness to Orthodoxy.

Source: OrthoChristian.Com  -  "Patriarch Bartholomew tells Athonites reunion with Catholics is inevitable, reports UOJ", Mt. Athos, November 27, 2019
https://orthochristian.com/125924.html