This post relates to the second critical issue in Called to be One: What Now?, Unity, Diversity and the Goal .
A few months ago, I joined a Pentecostal prayer meeting at an ecumenical gathering. I found it extremely difficult! I reacted negatively to being told what to pray for and to pray for it aloud myself. This was a two-fold problem, as I neither agreed with the issue I was told to pray for nor did I like being told to pray to order.
In retrospect, I am surprised at how strongly I reacted and perhaps in future, now I know what to expect, I might remain calmer. Temperamentally, I prefer calm and silence and I suspect that will not change.
But the report is right about the importance of prayer. The same issue came up at a workshop I led at Methodist Conference, a couple of years ago. Prayer should be the foundation of our ecumenism. It is also fundamental to Cardinal Kaspar's Spiritual Ecumenism (of which more in a future post).
They are right to say, even if we all agree about prayer being important, there will still be disagreements about what we pray for and how we pray. These are not necessarily rational thought through differences, sometimes we react at a very emotional level, as I did at that prayer meeting.
Towards the end of this section, they write: We might know we are together and talk unceasingly about ‘our invisible unity in Christ’ but THE WORLD does not see it and so will never believe. I have to ask, to what extent does it matter what the world sees? The world by definition does not see what Christians see. If we impose unity, the world will see us imposing unity. If we are united, in love for one another and each other's traditions, those who need to see it will see it.
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