Unity must be built on a common foundation named Jesus Christ, says Cardinal Kasper
Rome (AsiaNews) The path toward Christian unity is built on three elementsthe Bible, baptism and what it implies, and love for the Churchwhich rest on the conscious understanding that the common faith in Jesus is its foundation, this according to Card Walter Kasper, president of the Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
Presiding Vespers in the name of the Holy Father on the Feast Day of the Conversion of the Apostle of the Gentiles in the Basilica of St Paul, Cardinal Kasper spoke about the difficult but necessary future of ecumenism as the celebrations for the 2005 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity came to an end in the diocese of Rome.
The place and date are tied forever to the announcement made by John XXIII convening the Church to the Second Vatican Council.
"First of all, we have split over the Bible. Only reading, studying and thinking about it can we find unity," he said.
According to the Council, ignorance about the Bible means ignorance about Christ (Dei Verbum 25). We must, the Council urged us, renew the long tradition of Lectio divina (ibid), that is reading the Holy Scripture aloud. The best ecumenism is thus reading and living the Gospel.
Secondly, we must realise that "we are joined to Christ through the baptism. Our ecumenical journey does not start from scratch since it is through the baptism that we are already in a fundamental communion. It is this that joins us to Jesus Christ and our fellow human beings."
This means we must together think about what it means to be baptised from the point of view of both faith and life.
"What does the baptism mean in our daily life and in the ways we face ethical questions? Saint Paul told us "not to conform to the age" (cf Rom 12: 2), "not to be tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery" (cf. Eph 4: 14).
"We risk what is already a sad truth, namely becoming divided over new ethical questions and digging new fault lines on issues that for centuries united us.
"The result is that we are no longer able to bear common witness about the new creation to a world that is in urgent need for this prophetic witness."
"Finally, Jesus is present in the Church through His word and Sacraments.
"The pilgrim Church is not yet without blemish or wrinkles but it still walking along the long path towards purification, penitence and renewal.
"If Christ loves the Church and gives Himself for her no less, shouldn't we grow in the love of the Church, in the Sentire ecclesiam, that is feeling part and parcel of the Church?"
"Our ecumenical home includes all the disciples of Christ," said the Cardinal. "It will resist only if built on a common foundation, built on the Lord, his Word and Sacrament (cf 1 Cor 3: 19), built not on the wisdom of the world but on the one and only Spirit of Jesus Christ even if the world should consider it foolish but which is God's power and wisdom (cf. 1 Cor 1: 24).
"Let us therefore pray to the Lord that He may make us good builders and give us strength and spiritual wisdom, courage, patience and hope". (FP)
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23/08/2005
