In today’s Gospel passage from the end of John 17, we hear Jesus say in verses 20-21, ““I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.”
“That they may all be one.”
This is Jesus praying for Christian unity. It is a key verse, and perhaps the key verse, that serves as the call to ecumenism, or promoting the unity of Christian churches. Vatican II put a special emphasis on having the Catholic Church work to promote this unity with other Christian faiths. At the highest levels, Church leaders and theologians continue to work toward that unity with the leaders of these other faiths.
But I am neither a key leader of the Church in this effort nor a theologian tasked for this effort. What can I do? The Vatican II “Decree on Ecumenism” points toward two things that we can adapt to our individual situations to allow us to help promote better relations with our Christian brothers and sisters on a local basis.
One is attitude. Do we make “every effort to avoid expressions, judgments and actions which do not represent the condition of our separated brethren with truth and fairness and so make mutual relations with them more difficult?”
Second is dialogue. Do we engage our brothers and sisters in productive (and not combative) dialogue to understand their perspective and to find common ground on which we can agree? Do we allow them to explain and then truly listen to those explanations without trying to find an opening to exploit to win an argument? Do we look first for common ground? Of course, we can only go out to others in such discussions as thoroughly Catholic people fully formed and completely grounded in our own faith first.
We must seek unity not only with brothers and sisters in other Christian faiths, but especially with Catholics within our own faith. We must focus on what unites us as the Body of Christ and not on what divides us. Confusion and division are tools of the Evil One who rejoices when the Body of Christ is split by division. We may disagree, but we must do so in a way that does not divide.
In what ways have we contributed to unity? In what ways have we contributed to division?