Pope Explains What Christian Unity Is Not... from ZENIT of Roswell, Georgia, United States for Thursday, 10 November 2016
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Pope Explains What Christian Unity Is Not by ZENIT Staff
“Christian unity is an essential requirement of our faith, a requirement that springs from the intimacy of our being as believers in Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis affirmed today as he received in audience participants in the plenary session of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, which is on the theme “Christian unity: what model for full communion?”
During the audience Francis also referred to the important ecumenical meetings he has attended throughout the year, both in Rome and during his apostolic trips. which enabled him to confirm that the desire for communion, one of his main concerns, is living and intense.
“We wish to live unity, because we wish to follow Christ, to live His love, to benefit from the mystery of His being one with the Father, which is the essence of divine love. … According to Jesus’ priestly prayer, what we yearn for is unity in the love of the Father, which comes to us as a gift in Jesus Christ, love that also informs thought and doctrines,” he said.
The Pope said that agreement on how we understand the Gospel is not enough, because there must be union in Christ.
“It is our personal and community conversion, our gradual conformation to Him, our living increasingly in Him, that enables us to grow in communion between us,” he said, adding that this communion is the “soul that also supports sessions of study and every other type of effort to arrive at more closely aligned points of view.”
False models
The Pope went on to list some “false models” of communion.
— Unity is not the fruit of our human efforts or the product constructed by ecclesiastical diplomacy, but is instead “a gift that comes from on high.” From this point of view, Francis said, unity is a journey rather than a destination.
— Unity is not uniformity. “The different theological, liturgical, spiritual and canonical traditions which have developed in the Christian world, when they are genuinely rooted in the apostolic tradition, are a wealth for and not a threat to the unity of the Church. Seeking to suppress this diversity is to counter the Holy Spirit, Who acts by enriching the community of believers with a variety of gifts.”
— Unity is not absorption. “Christian unity does not lead to a ‘reverse ecumenism,’ for which one would have to deny their own history of faith; neither does it tolerate proselytism, which is instead poisonous to the path of ecumenism. Before seeing what separates us, it is necessary to perceive also in an existential way the wealth of what we have in common, such as the Sacred Scripture and the great professions of faith of the first ecumenical Councils. In this way, we Christians are able to acknowledge we are brothers and sisters who believe in the one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, committed together to finding the way of obeying today the word of God, Who wants us to be united”.
Pope Francis concluded by reiterating that Ecumenism is true when it is able to move attention away from itself, from its own arguments and formulations, to the Word of God that demands to be heard, welcomed and witnessed in the world. Therefore, the various Christian communities are called not to compete with one another, but to collaborate.
“My recent visit to Lund,” he said, “reminded me of the relevance of the ecumenical principle formulated there by the Ecumenical Council of Churches in 1952, which recommends that Christians ‘should act together in all matters except those in which deep differences of conviction compel them to act separately.'”
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Full text: https://zenit.org/articles/popes-address-to-pontifical-council-for-promoting-christian-unity-2/
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Pope’s Morning Homily: ‘Guard Your Hope’ by Deborah Castellano Lubov
Guard and take care of your hope, and do not be swayed by ‘show or entertainment religion’ that constantly seeks novelty and revelations.
According to Vatican Radio, during his morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta today, Pope Francis made these exhortations, comparing this type of ‘religion’ to fireworks that impress us at first, then sizzle out.
The Holy Father drew his inspiration from today’s readings about Jesus’ response to the Pharisees asking when the Kingdom of God would come. Francis compared Jesus telling them that “the Kingdom of God is among you,” to a small seed that is planted and grows on its own over time. Without drawing attention to it, God helps the seed grow, the Jesuit Pope noted.
“The Kingdom of God is not a ‘show’ religion: one that is always seeking new things, revelations, messages,” Francis stressed, reminding those present that “God spoke through Jesus Christ: this is the last Word of God.”
Not Fireworks
“The other one is like fireworks that lit you up for a moment and then what is left behind? Nothing. There is no growth, there is no light, there’s nothing: just an instant. And we have been tempted many times by this entertainment religion of seeking things that are extraneous to the revelation, to the meekness of the Kingdom of God that is among us and which grows.”
However, the Pope pointed out, this is not about hope, but about the desire to have something in our hands.
“Our salvation comes from hope, the hope of a man who sows the seed or the woman who makes the bread, mixing yeast and flour: a hope that grows. Instead, this artificial brightness only lasts an instant and then it dies away, like fireworks: they are not needed for giving light to a house. It’s just a show.”
Guard Hope Always …With Patience
After asking those present to think about what they should do as they wait for the fullness of the Kingdom of God, he recommended we must guard and take care of our hope.
“Guard it with patience. Patience in our work, in our sufferings… Guarding it like the man who has planted a seed and who takes care of the plant, ensuring there are no weeds close to it, so it will grow. Guard our hope.
He then put some questions to those present: ‘If the Kingdom of God is among us today, if all of us have this seed inside us, if we have the Holy Spirit there, how do I guard it? How do I discern this, how can I discern the good plant from the seed of the darnel?’ The Kingdom of God grows and what must we do?
“Guard it,” he answered. “Grow through hope and guard that hope. Because we have been saved through hope. And this is the thread: hope is the thread in the history of salvation. Our hope of meeting the Lord for sure.”
Hope, he explained, is what strengthens the Kingdom.
“Let us ask ourselves: Do I have hope? Or do I go ahead as best I can without knowing how to tell the good from the bad, the darnel seed, the light, the meek light of the Holy Spirit from the brightness of this artificial thing? Let us ask ourselves about our hope in this seed that is growing inside us and on how to guard our hope.
“The Kingdom of God is among us,” the Pope reaffirmed, “but we must, through rest, work, discernment, guard the hope of this Kingdom of God that grows until the time when the Lord will come and everything will be transformed.
“In a brief moment: everything! The world, us, everything” will be transformed, Pope Francis stressed, noting that as Paul said to the Christians of Thessalonica, ‘We shall be with the Lord for ever.’”
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Let’s Give Him Time, Says Cardinal Parolin on Trump by Salvatore Cernuzio
“We wait to see what choices Donald Trump will make during his mandate. Let’s give him time to begin,” said the Pope’s Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, today as he responded to the press asking about the declared plans of the newly elected President of the United States of America to build a wall that would seal the border with Mexico.
In an aside of today’s presentation of Father Antonio Spadaro’s book “My Word Is in Your Eyes,” at the Jesuits’ General Curia, the Cardinal was reminded of the words expressed by Pope Francis on his return flight from Mexico in February 2016, when he said that building walls instead of building bridges is not Christian.
“We are all in agreement on the principles (of the Holy Father),” said Cardinal Parolin, “however we wait. Now it’s about seeing which will be the choices he will make during his mandate. Let’s give him, at least, some days … let’s give him the time to begin.”
The Secretary of State then confirmed what was already expressed yesterday by the Lateran about Trump’s unexpected victory. “We hope that with this election, on which positive considerations but also fears were expressed, we will be able to help peace. There is need of this today. There is need that the American leadership be committed increasingly to seeking ways of dialogue and negotiation and resolve the many conflicts that are lacerating the world.”
According to the Cardinal, points of dialogue can be found with the Vatican, beginning with that of peace, “which should be one of the fundamental topics.” Then, “internal subjects such as religious freedom, Catholics’ commitment and attention to the most vulnerable bands of society.”
On relations between the Holy See and China, instead, Cardinal Parolin was short: “We are working. We hope the day will arrive, but I can’t foresee the times.”
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Bishop Named for Incheon, Korea by ZENIT Staff
Pope Francis has appointed Bishop John Baptist Jung-Shin-chul as bishop of Incheon, Korea. He is currently auxiliary of the same diocese.
The Diocese of Incheon has a population of more than 4.2 million, with less than a half million Catholics. They are served by some 300 priests and about 750 religious.
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Pope’s Address to Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity by ZENIT Staff
Here is a translation of Pope Francis’ address this afternoon to the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity:
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Lord Cardinals,
Dear Brother Bishops and Priests,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I am happy to meet with you on the occasion of your Plenary Session, which is addressing the theme “Christian Unity: What Model of Full Communion?” I thank Cardinal Koch for the words he addressed to me in the name of you all.
In the course of this year, I had the opportunity to live many significant ecumenical meetings, be it in Rome, be it during trips. Each one of these meetings was for me a source of consolation, because I was able to see that the desire for communion is alive and intense. In as much as Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter, aware of the responsibility entrusted to me by the Lord, I wish to confirm that Christian unity is one of my main concerns, and I pray that it will be increasingly shared by every baptized person.
Christian unity is an essential exigency of our faith, an exigency that flows from the depth of our being believers in Jesus Christ. We invoke unity because we invoke Christ. We want to live unity, because we want to follow Christ, to live His love, to enjoy the mystery of His being one with the Father, which is, then, the essence of divine love. In the Holy Spirit, Jesus Himself associates us to His prayer: “as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us […] I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me […] that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them”(John 17:21.23.26). According to Jesus’ priestly prayer, what we yearn for is unity in the love of the Father, who comes to us offered in Jesus Christ, a love that also informs thought and doctrines. It is not enough to be in agreement in the understanding of the Gospel, but all of us believers must be united to Christ and in Christ. It is our personal and communal conversion, a gradual conformation to Him (cf. Romans8:28), our living ever more in Him (cf. Galatians 2:20), which enables us to grow in communion among ourselves. This is also the spirit that sustains the study sessions and every other sort of effort to come to closer points of view.
Having this well in mind, it is possible to unmask certain false models of communion that in reality do not lead to unity but contradict it in its essence.
First of all, unity is not the fruit of our human efforts or the product built by ecclesiastical diplomacy, but it is a gift that comes from on high. We men are not able to achieve unity by ourselves, nor can we discern the ways and times. What, then, is our role? What must we do to promote Christian unity? Our task is to receive this gift and make it visible to all. From this point of view, unity, before being a goal, is a path, with its roadmaps and its rhythms, its slowing down and its acceleration, and also its pauses. As a path, unity requires patient expectations, tenacity, effort and commitment; it does not annul conflicts and does not cancel contrasts, rather, at times it can expose to the risk of new misunderstandings. Unity can be accepted only by one who decides to set out on the path to a goal that today might seem rather distant. However, he who follows this way is comforted by the continual experience of a communion joyfully perceived, even if not yet fully attained, every time that presumption is set aside and we all recognize ourselves in need of God’s love. And what bond unites all of us Christians more than the experience of being sinners but at the same time object of God’s infinite mercy revealed to us by Jesus Christ? Likewise, unity of love is already a reality when those whom God has chosen and called to form His people proclaim together the wonders that He has done for them, above all by offering a testimony of life full of charity to all (cf. 1 Peter 2:4-10). Therefore, I love to repeat that unity is done walking, to remind that when we walk together, we collaborate together in the proclamation of the Gospel and in the service to the least we are already united. All the theological and ecclesiological differences that still divide Christians will only be surmounted along this way, without us knowing today how and when, but that it will happen according to what the Holy Spirit will suggest for the good of the Church.
In the second place, unity is not uniformity. The different theological, liturgical, spiritual and canonical differences, which have developed in the Christian world, when they are genuinely rooted in the Apostolic Tradition, are a richness and not a threat to the unity of the Church. To seek to do away with such diversity is to go against the Holy Spirit, who acts by enriching the community of believers with a variety of gifts. In the course of history, there have been attempts of this nature, with consequences that sometimes have caused suffering even today. If instead we allow ourselves to be guided by the Spirit, richness, variety and diversity never become conflict, because He drives us to live the variety in the communion of the Church. It is an ecumenical task to respect legitimate differences and to lead to surmount the irreconcilable differences with the unity that God requests. The continuation of such differences must not paralyze us, but push us to seek together the way to address such obstacles successfully.
Finally, unity is not absorption. Christian unity does not imply an ecumenism “in reverse,” by which some might deny their own history of faith; nor does it tolerate proselytism, which is, rather, a poison for the ecumenical path. Before seeing what separates us, we should perceive also in an essential way, the richness of what unites us, such as Sacred Scripture and the great professions of faith of the first Ecumenical Councils. By doing so, we Christians can recognize ourselves as brothers and sisters who believe in the one Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, committed together to seek the way to obey today the Word of God that wills us united. Ecumenism is true when it is able to move our attention away from ourselves, from our argumentations and formulations, to the Word of God which exacts being listened to, received and witnessed in the world. Therefore, the various Christian communities are called not to “concur,” but to collaborate. My recent visit to Lund reminded me of how timely is the ecumenical principle formulated there by the Ecumenical Council of the Churches already in 1952, which recommends to Christians “to do all things together, except in those cases in which the profound difficulties of convictions imposed to act separately.”
I thank you for your commitment. I assure you of my remembrance in prayer and I trust in yours for me. May the Lord bless you and Our Lady protect you.[Original Text: Italian] [Translation by ZENIT]
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Monks Were ‘Spiritual Combatants’ Amidst Shocks of Quake by Federico Cenci
Heavy plastic tarpaulins protect from the weather the smithereens of Saint Benedict’s Basilica at Norcia, which collapsed following an earthquake October 30. Firemen completed the covering under the gaze of a few Benedictine monks.
The monks’ presence in the city is silent but significant. Established on the territory in keeping with their Founder’s Rule, the monks have given material help and spiritual comfort to the population of Norcia already since the August 24 earthquake and again after the last violent shocks.
No longer in the damaged monastery but rather in safer log cabins, they continue to gather for their daily prayers and to celebrate Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite. The solemnity and rituality of their gestures is the image of the bulwark of faith, hope and charity that they, true and proper spiritual combatants, represent in a context marked negatively by the natural scourge.
ZENIT spoke about it with the Vice-Prior, American Father Benedict Nivakoff.
ZENIT: How is the population reacting?
Father Nivakoff: It’s rather discouraged. The majority of the citizens of Norcia were evacuated, with a forced action on the part of the Authorities, to the area of Lake Trasimeno. Those who remain do not live in the historic center. Their greatest concern is to make Norcia return to live again as it did before the earthquake.
ZENIT: Where, at present, do you find yourself precisely?
Father Nivakoff: We had two monasteries, one in the historic center and one in the country. Both collapsed. However, after the August 24 quake we built log cabins in the surroundings of the monastery outside the city, which we call Saint Benedict in Monte. Therefore, we find ourselves in these structures that, being of wood, are far safer.
ZENIT: Your Community is made up of monks of the whole world. Do they want to remain in Norcia?
Father Nivakoff: Certainly. The monks take the vow of stability. When a tragedy of this sort happens, a monk feels himself rooted in the territory more than ever. Immediately after the earthquake of October 30, the priests who were in the monastery went out in haste to give the Sacraments to individuals who were not well and to help the firemen to provide material help. And meanwhile the monks that are not priests, remained in the monastery to pray.
Q: How have your daily commitments changed following the earthquakes?
Father Nivakoff: We moved forward the morning somewhat to be quicker. Before we got up at 3:45 am, now at 3:30 am.
Q: How important is prayer for you, especially in this difficult phase?
Father Nivakoff: (He sighs). It’s essential. Tragedies of this sort aren’t understood if we don’t have God present in our life. It is only by looking at Him and at the long history of Creation that we can understand the meaning of such an event.
ZENIT: Is there a prayer that befits this situation more than others?
Father Nivakoff: During the Masses, from August 24 and after, we are reciting a prayer that requests the protection of the people, the forgiveness of our sins, and protection from the devil.
ZENIT: There is a beautiful image of the Religious and laity kneeling, shortly after the earthquake, to pray before Saint Benedict’s destroyed Basilica …
Father Nivakoff: That image reminds us that to kneel is an act of submission: God is the Creator and we are the creatures. At that moment we addressed to Him a supplication in favor of all those who were suffering due to the earthquake.
ZENIT: The monk’s life is one of combat: a concept that is expressed in a very strong way at this moment?
Father Nivakoff: Yes, the battle is spiritual. The monk’s back must remain straight; the monk has the duty to resist the so-called eight vices. I remember that the monks went into the desert in fact after being tempted. When a fireman sees a flame he throws himself against it. Well, the monk does the same: he enters the trial by going to encounter the temptation, to be purified by maintaining trust in God’s help.
ZENIT: You, Benedictines, work almost as an extension of prayer. With this intention, you produce Nursia Beer at Norcia. In what condition is the brewery after the earthquake?
Father Nivakoff: Mysteriously, the brewery did not suffer damages despite the fact that the building in which it finds itself is totally unfit. This means that inevitably there will be a pause in the production for one or two months, namely, the necessary time to render accessible the red area where it is found, after we will gradually take up again the production of beer.
ZENIT: The businessman Brunello Cucinelli has committed himself to contribute economically to the reconstruction of the Basilica. How did you receive his commitment? Have you met him in person over these days?
Father Nivakoff: Yes, we have met him often and he has assured us of his support and his closeness. Above all, he wants this monastery to live again. He is a man of faith and of prayer. He sees in Saint Benedict a guide in the darkest moments of history.
ZENIT: There were controversies over the statements via radio of a priest who agitated the connection between natural disasters and divine punishments, due in this case to the approval in Italy of civil unions. What is your idea on the matter?
Father Nivakoff: I haven’t followed it much. But that God intervenes in history, in the good or in the evil is part of our faith. Otherwise, He would be a God that is not interested in us. It’s true; sometimes He also sends difficult circumstances, which serve, however, to purify us. The question is more delicate when we have the presumption that “ics” tragedy is caused by an “ypsilon” sin. It’s not excluded, but they are very mysterious circumstances, which we will only understand after our death. In moments such as this it is opportune to ponder and entrust oneself to prayer.
ZENIT: After the August 24 earthquake, some wondered where God was …
Father Nivakoff: I would see as a miracle the fact that, despite the strong shocks of October 26 and 30, there were no other victims. This is the mystery of Providence: after the earthquake of Amatrice, many people left our area and took precautions. If this had not happened, today we would all be under the rubble.
ZENIT: Saint Benedict’s statue, at the center of the Square in front of the Basilica, remained upright. What value does the figure of this Saint assume in today’s Europe, of which he is Patron?
Father Nivakoff: That statue that remained upright offers an analogy. Saint Benedict asks us monks to remain fixed in a territory to convert. At a time like ours, of great physical and ideological displacements, of passing fashions that agitate Europe and not only Europe, Saint Benedict’s message to remain rooted in faith in Jesus Christ is important. This is the only way of salvation.
For all updating and information on how to give a hand go to:https://it.nursia.org/terremoto/[Translation by ZENIT]
For more information on the brewery and to purchase in the USA: https://birranursia.com
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“Doctor Strange,” Scientism and the Gnostic Way Station by Bishop Robert Barron
Scott Derickson’s new film, Doctor Strange, has received rave reviews for its special-effects, its compelling story-telling, and the quality of its actors, but I would like to focus on the spirituality implicit in it. Doctor Strange is far from a satisfying presentation of the spiritual order, but it represents a significant step in the right direction, which proves especially helpful for our time.
Played by the always splendid Benedict Cumberbatch, Dr. Strange is dashing, handsome, ultra-cool, a brilliant neuro-surgeon, called upon to handle only the most delicate and complex surgeries. He is also unbearably arrogant, pathologically self-absorbed, utterly dismissive of his colleagues, something of a first-class jerk. While racing in his Lamborghini to an evening soiree, he runs his car off the road and suffers grievous injuries to his hands. Despite the heroic efforts of the best surgeons, his fingers remain twisted, incapable of performing the operations which made him rich and famous.
In his desperation, he travels to a mysterious treatment center in Katmandu, where people with horrific and irreversible physical damage have, he hears, been cured. There he confronts a bald-pated female figure, played by Tilda Swinton, who claims that she has healed severed spinal cords through the manipulation of spiritual forces. When he hears this, the rationalist Dr. Strange explodes in anger and, poking her in the chest, he asserts his conviction that matter is all there is and that we human beings exist for a brief moment in the context of an indifferent universe. With that, she shoves him backward and, to Dr. Strange’s infinite astonishment, his astral body suddenly leaves his ordinary body. This is his introduction to a world that he never knew existed, and the beginning of his mystical apprenticeship. By the way, if you want a compelling Christian take on this phenomenon, look at Fr. Robert Spitzer’s musings on “trans-physical consciousness,” or in more ordinary language, the “soul.”
What I particularly liked about this confrontation in Katmandu is how it represents a challenge to the comically arrogant scientism of our time, by which I mean, the fallacy of reducing all forms of knowing to the scientific manner of knowing. This attitude, though widespread today through the influence of the “new” atheists, is utterly self-refuting. How, precisely, did the advocate of scientism see, measure, or empirically verify through experimentation the truth of the claim that only empirically measurable things are true? Though as I say widely held in many circles today, this crude attitude was not characteristic of the founders of the modern sciences, many of whom—Descartes, Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton come readily to mind—were devoutly religious, nor was it embraced by such key scientific figures as Gregory Mendel, an Augustinian friar or Georges LeMaitre, the formulator of the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins and a Catholic priest. The coolly arrogant but hopelessly narrow Dr. Strange is an apt representation of the clueless advocates of scientism on the contemporary scene, those who have simply closed themselves off to what a thousand generations of human beings have taken for granted.
In order to participate in the dynamics of the higher world, Dr. Strange has to go through a lengthy and demanding training, not unlike, his master explains, the formation he went through to become a neurosurgeon. But now he has to leave his ego aside and surrender to something he can’t entirely understand. This disciplining of the grasping self, of course, is at the heart of monastic and spiritual traditions the world over. Therefore, in the measure that it reminds young people that there is more to reality than meets the eye and in the measure that it encourages them to embark upon a properly spiritual path, Doctor Strange performs, I would argue, an important service.
However, all is not well with this film from a spiritual point of view, for it stops, as many contemporary movies do, at a sort of way station to the real thing. As does Star Wars, which also features a young man going through a needed apprenticeship, Doctor Strange initiates us into a fundamentally Gnostic space, a realm of spiritual powers, both good and evil, engaged in a relentless and never-ending struggle. Dark and light side of the Force, anyone? And its basic game is the learning of spells and incantations—secret gnosis—that will enable one to manipulate the higher powers to a good purpose. To be sure, there are elements of the Biblical story in Doctor Strange, as there are in Star Wars, for instance the theme of salvific suffering and embrace of mission on behalf of others. But Gnostic visions always miss the essential teaching contained in Biblical revelation, namely that God is a personal power, who can never, even in principle, be manipulated by us and who reigns supreme and victorious over any and all powers of evil at work in the cosmos. The point of the spiritual life, on the Biblical reading, is not to control the powers through knowledge, but to surrender in faith to the purposes of God and to accept from God a mission to incarnate his love in the world.
I’m sure it’s asking too much to expect escapist popcorn movies to get Biblical spirituality right. And if Doctor Strange can beguile young people out of a deadening and self-contradictory scientism, opening them to a world beyond ordinary experience, I say “two cheers for it.”
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