Subversive Christian Unity

The pope has retired, in a move that is unusual but not unprecedented. It is certainly right to pass on the mantle to another when you know you have given all you can, your efforts are flagging and your own exhaustion limits your effectiveness. I've felt that way too, and as one of fewer years and much narrower responsibilities. I wish him a blessed and peaceful retirement. I hope he will be able to do some writing. I would like to read more from him, particularly on Christian unity. He surprised me by taking a profound interest in the matter. I was expecting that Joseph Ratzinger, the hard line theologian, would be rigidly doctrinaire as pope. But as Benedict he opened his arms outward and acknowledged, to a degree that surprised me, that there is one Lord, of faith, one baptism. My Latin is so appallingly bad that at first I misread the title of the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus , thinking it concerned English rocketry. Fortunately there is an English translat...

The "home to Rome" approach to unity has something wrong with it, and it is that commonality of confession and worship did not produce true unity when we had them. In working toward Christian unity, we should frequently examine what the goal is. Here is what Christ prayed for us (John ch. 17): My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Some see in this the need for unity in the official understanding of all main points of doctrine, in the celebration of sacraments and in the form of worship, but I think that view of unity can at least...

Here is, perhaps, something all Christians can agree on. The highest good is to honor God in all you do. Few of us manage to do that by more than fits and starts, none of us manages to do it full time, but that is the ideal. As it turns out, honoring God in our actions works out to our own good. Some people may question this.  If we are patient and kindly rather than harsh and cruel, generous rather than grasping and greedy, honest and forthright rather than shifty and deceptive, how will we ever get ahead in life that way? I suppose the answer depends upon whom you are trying to get ahead of. The leading runner in the rat race is still a rat. When we practice virtue, the advantage to us is that we become in the process something beautiful, little signs or harbingers of God's kingdom, clues to the clueless that there is something beyond this life and its cares; we are people "in the world but not of it." We see the world in a truer light. Its pains and woes are ligh...