Lumen Fidei: Pope Francis. Day Seven of Christian Unity Week

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The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Day Seven: Together... we belong to Christ

Isaiah envisioned a day when Egyptians and Assyrians would worship together with Israel as God’s people. Christian unity belongs to the design of God for the unity of all humanity, and indeed of the cosmos itself. We pray for the day when we will worship together in one faith and one Eucharistic fellowship.

We are blessed by the gifts of various church traditions. Recognising those gifts in each other impels us towards visible unity.

Our baptism unites us as one body in Christ. While we value our particular churches, Paul reminds us that all who call on the name of the Lord are with us in Christ for we all belong to the one body. There is no other to whom we can say, "I have no need of you" (1 Cor 12:21).

Vatican Resources

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Lumen Fidei: A Summary on Pope Francis' First Encyclical

06 Jul 2013

Chapter 2 seeks to understand the relationship between faith and several other aspects—reason, love, truth, and theology. Lumen Fidei shows that truth is necessary for faith so that it can remain grounded. Faith is rooted in ...

http://nunraw.blogspot.com/

For some reason, the writer wished to remove this Blog.
Thanks for his article, I hope he can gain access by the Link.
I loved the illustrations.
Please excuse the delay - it is a first in tracing in the Blog archive.

Happily, the ENCYCLICAL LETTER 
LUMEN FIDEI  is accessible Online at:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_enciclica-lumen-fidei_en.html
and it has Downloaded with ease.  

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Day 5 of WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY and throughout the year 2014 Has Christ been divided? (1 Cor 1:13)

Ordinary Time: January 22nd
Night Office Readings being used for Christian Unity 

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The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Day Five: Together... we are called into fellowship

We are called into fellowship with God the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. As we draw closer to the Triune God, we are drawn closer to one another in Christian unity.

Christ has initiated a change in our relationship, calling us friends instead of servants. In response to this relationship of love, we are called out of relationships of power and domination into friendship and love of one another.

Called by Jesus, we witness to the gospel both to those who have not yet heard it and to those who have. This proclamation contains a call into fellowship with God, and establishes fellowship among those who respond.

Vatican Resources   - extract:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/weeks

Day 5	Together... we are called into fellowship
Isaiah 43:1-7	I will be with you
Psalm 133	How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!
1 John 1:3-7	We have fellowship with one another"
John 15:12-17	I have called you friends"

Three points for reflection

We are called into fellowship with God the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. As we draw closer to the Triune God, we are drawn closer to one another in Christian unity.

Christ has initiated a change in our relationship, calling us friends instead of servants. In response to this relationship of love, we are called out of relationships of power and domination into friendship and love of one another.

Called by Jesus, we witness to the gospel both to those who have not yet heard it and to those who have. This proclamation contains a call into fellowship with God, and establishes fellowship among those who respond.

Questions

• In what ways do you experience the call into fellowship with God?
• In what ways is God calling you into fellowship with others within your church and beyond?

Prayer

Father of love, you have called us into the fellowship of your Son and appointed us to bear fruit in our witness to the gospel. By the grace of your Spirit, enable us to love one another and to dwell together in unity so that our joy may be complete. Amen. 

Week of prayer for Christian unity

PoPope Francis: 'Our witness must concentrate on
the centre of our faith.' 

Pope Francis has said the evangelisation of secular society requires focusing on the essentials of Christianity in collaboration with other Christian churches. 

The Pope made his remarks at a meeting with representatives of the Lutheran Church in Finland, who were making their annual ecumenical pilgrimage to Rome on the feast of Finland’s patron, St Henry. The meeting occurred one day before the start of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Pope Francis told the group that ecumenical relations lately have been undergoing “significant changes, owing above all to the fact that we find ourselves professing our faith in the context of societies and cultures every day more lacking in reference to God and all that recalls the transcendent dimension of life”.

“For this very reason, our witness must concentrate on the centre of our faith, on the announcement of the love of God made manifest in Christ his son,” the Pope said. “Here we find space to grow in communion and in unity, promoting spiritual ecumenism.”

Pope Francis quoted the Second Vatican Council’s decree on ecumenism, which described “spiritual ecumenism” as consisting of “conversion of heart and holiness of life, together with private and public prayer for Christian unity,” which form the “soul of the whole ecumenical movement”.

from The Catholic Herald, 17 January 2014

Saturday, 18 January 2014

Saturday of the First week in Ordinary Time

Feast of the Church : Week of prayer for Christian unity

See commentary below or click here
Vatican Council II: "As he passed by, he saw Levi... He said to him, 'Follow me.' " 

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 2:13-17.

Jesus went out along the sea. All the crowd came to him and he taught them.
As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post. He said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. ... 

Commentary of the day :

Vatican Council II
Dogmatic Constitution on revelation « Dei Verbum », § 1-2

"As he passed by, he saw Levi... He said to him, 'Follow me.' "

Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith, the sacred synod takes its direction from these words of Saint John: "We announce to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you, so that you may have fellowship with us and our common fellowship be with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ" (1 Jn 1:2-3)...

In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (Eph 1,9) by which, through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (Eph 2,18; 2 Pt 1,4). Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (Col 1,15; 1 Tm. 1,17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (Ex 33,11; Jn 15,14-15) and lives among them (Bar 3,38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself.

This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this revelation then, the deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation.

Christian Unity 'The primacy of prayer' Sun. 20 Jan 2013

The primacy of prayer 

A Reading about Christian Unity

Night Office

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint_en.html   

UT UNUM SINT 
IOANNES PAULUS PP. II

The primacy of prayer    

• 21. "This change of heart and holiness of life, along with public and private prayer for the unity of Christians, should be regarded as the soul of the whole ecumenical movement, and can rightly be called 'spiritual ecumenism' ".⁴²
  
• We proceed along the road leading to the conversion of hearts guided by love which is directed to God and, at the same time, to all our brothers and sisters, including those not in full communion with us. Love gives rise to the desire for unity, even in those who have never been aware of the need for it. Love builds communion between individuals and between Communities. If we love one another, we strive to deepen our communion and make it perfect.Love is given to God as the perfect source of communion—the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit—that we may draw from that source the strength to build communion between individuals and Communities, or to re-establish it between Christians still divided. Love is the great undercurrent which gives life and adds vigour to the movement towards unity.
  
• This love finds its most complete expression in common prayer. When brothers and sisters who are not in perfect communion with one another come together to pray, the Second Vatican Council defines their prayer as the soul of the whole ecumenical movement. This prayer is "a very effective means of petitioning for the grace of unity", "a genuine expression of the ties which even now bind Catholics to their separated brethren".⁴³ Even when prayer is not specifically offered for Christian unity, but for other intentions such as peace, it actually becomes an expression and confirmation of unity. The common prayer of Christians is an invitation to Christ himself to visit the community of those who call upon him: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Mt 18:20).
  
• 22. When Christians pray together, the goal of unity seems closer. The long history of Christians marked by many divisions seems to converge once more because it tends towards that Source of its unity which is Jesus Christ. He "is the same yesterday, today and forever!" (Heb13:8). In the fellowship of prayer Christ is truly present; he prays "in us", "with us" and "for us". It is he who leads our prayer in the Spirit-Consoler whom he promised and then bestowed on his Church in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, when he established her in her original unity.
• Along the ecumenical path to unity, pride of place certainly belongs to common prayer, the prayerful union of those who gather together around Christ himself. If Christians, despite their divisions, can grow ever more united in common prayer around Christ, they will grow in the awareness of how little divides them in comparison to what unites them. If they meet more often and more regularly before Christ in prayer, they will be able to gain the courage to face all the painful human reality of their divisions, and they will find themselves together once more in that community of the Church which Christ constantly builds up in the Holy Spirit, in spite of all weaknesses and human limitations.
  
• 23. Finally, fellowship in prayer leads people to look at the Church and Christianity in a new way. It must not be forgotten in fact that the Lord prayed to the Father that his disciples might be one, so that their unity might bear witness to his mission and the world would believe that the Father had sent him (cf. Jn 17:21). It can be said that the ecumenical movement in a certain sense was born out of the negative experience of each one of those who, in proclaiming the one Gospel, appealed to his own Church or Ecclesial Community. This was a contradiction which could not escape those who listened to the message of salvation and found in this fact an obstacle to acceptance of the Gospel. Regrettably, this grave obstacle has not been overcome. It is true that we are not yet in full communion. And yet, despite our divisions, we are on the way towards full unity, that unity which marked the Apostolic Church at its birth and which we sincerely seek. Our common prayer, inspired by faith, is proof of this. In that prayer, we gather together in the name of Christ who is One. He is our unity.
  
• "Ecumenical" prayer is at the service of the Christian mission and its credibility. It must thus be especially present in the life of the Church and in every activity aimed at fostering Christian unity. It is as if we constantly need to go back and meet in the Upper Room of Holy Thursday, even though our presence together in that place will not be perfect until the obstacles to full ecclesial communion are overcome and all Christians can gather together in the common celebration of the Eucharist.⁴⁴