Unity, a Challenge for the third Millennium by Fr. Pierre-Marie

So that they all may be one... (Jn 17:11). This prayer of Jesus is not only a pious wish or an unachievable wish but a confirmation that unity of the disciples of the Church is based on a fundamental, essential and indestructible unity of the very Holy Trinity: "that they may also be one in us so that the world may believe that you sent me” (Jn 17:11;21).

With a strong belief in this, our Pope John Paul II makes this the banner of his pontificate and takes up the leadership of his flock as servant for unity so that the Church can enter the third millennium. He claims this in a reassured way in his Encyclical Ut Unum Sint.

Of course this "Springtime of the Church,” this fresh breeze of the Holy Spirit over the Church has aroused immense hope, which all these prophets were announcing: Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Patriarchs such as Athenagoras, Orthodox priests such as Father Men or pastors such as David du Plessis, Thomas Roberts and several others who have "seen" and proclaimed "The Church as being One" in the proclamation of faith by the Councils of Nicaea-Constantinople.

The Church of the two first millennia saw its robe without seams, torn apart since the time of the apostles and martyrs. The first millennium is above all marked by risks which christological heresies provoked, opposing this or that part of the church. These quarrels led to a weakening and a breaking up of the Church with regard to conquering ambitions of pagan empires of the time. Faith was weakened, and whole pieces of the Church crumbled.

The second millennium gradually opened a gap in this unity of faith, so painstakingly and slowly rebuilt due to quarrels within the kernel of the Church. It is no longer faith that is at stake but the Body of the Church. And witnessing of holiness, poverty (simple and evangelical) of humanity ceded place to human rivalries. The East-West schism deprives the Church of fully breathing in the Holy Spirit. That is why Pope John Paul II speaks of this One Church, which needs both of its lungs to bring the divine breath over the world in a state of suffocation. The haughtiness of the Roman Church and of sins over the centuries led to cause a new shock and a new fracture, the one of the "protestant" Reform. And the latter century marked the height of disunion, thus dividing and dissecting the Church in a state of shock, dying and no longer being able to serve the "world". The world stripped it bare and made ridicule of it like a fossil of another age before "the new age" of Godless supermarket religions.

The Church, as One, is not a matter for men but for God, who does not change his mind even when fashion passes.

The third millennium has been prepared by great signs of hope, such as Vatican Council II and everything that has sprung up like young shoots which let us perceive Unity not as a lost paradise but as a gift from God to be resolutely grasped today. We have already been given many strong signs in this Jubilee Year. There were three witnesses of faith to open the prayer week for Christian Unity: the Pope, an Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop and the Anglican Archbishop, who pushed open the holy door of the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls. On 12th March before the Cross and a ‘menorah’ whose lamps were lit after each of the seven requests for forgiveness, it was the day of "great pardon" when the whole Church asked for God’s mercy and healing of memory for the sins of the past against Christian unity, the People of the first Covenant, human dignity and Life. These gestures were multiplied by intense emotion during the Holy Father’s pilgrimage to Yad Vashem and at the Wailing Wall where he laid down among the stones of the Temple of Jerusalem a request for forgiveness of the Church towards the children of Israel. Unity of the Church cannot be achieved without Israel. Their regained unity will be like an explosion of light on the day of the Resurrection and a powerful witnessing for proclaiming the Good News of Salvation in the world. And it was through the martyrs of all confessions that the witnessing of unity of the faith can have its full meaning, as Pope John Paul II wished.

How can one not feel that Unity is not a lost treasure or a fleeing horizon but a permanent gift from our Lord Jesus to His disciples, to His Church, His kiss of love on the lips for "these new times". This is the challenge of this new millennium. United Christians make the Gospel credible, freed from all supporting and sectarian interpretation. Hence evangelization will receive unsuspected and decisive impetus.

"Here I have made everything new, have you not noticed this?" (Is. 43:19). How can this millennium, in the burning breath of the Holy Spirit who sighs with the Church, "Come Lord Jesus!", be the one of the Wedding of the Lamb and of the Church, beautiful and ready for this wealth of graces which divisions intended to scatter but which God, the Trinity, brought together to be even more glorified in Her "so that the world may believe".

Read other articles of spiritual enlightenment in the October 2000 edition of Charismatics or return to the Main Menu by clicking on the blue.