01.20.09
What does it mean to be ecumenical?
Last night I presided over a Catholic prayer service with a priest who, the first time I met him, told me he had never met an evangelical before.
This week is a special week of prayer for the unity of churches. Every night there are at least two places that are having some sort of meeting with churches from lots of denominations. I was slated for the prayer service in Castelfidardo, followed by a question and answer period after.
The priest was very welcoming. I told him I was there to help in any way, and that I had prepared a short thought after the reading from 1 Peter. He told me he would be happy to hear my thoughts, and away the service went. Things went as planed, except when he spontaneously nudged me during the service when he decided I should read some of the responsive texts with him.
The question and answer period after was fairly low key. I introduced myself and the others who came with me. Most wanted to know what a protestant service was like. The nuns who came up asked me the three classic questions: 1) Do you pray to Mary? 2) Are you under the pope? 3) Is communion for you actually the body and blood of Christ, or just a symbol? Unfortunately, according to one of the nuns, I was “wrong” on all three counts.
I honestly dread these meetings. I’m not much of a PR guy. Crowds of strangers are difficult for me. Question and answer time is rough because the Italian doesn’t always flow under pressure. But after I get over it I always enjoy them. Even after almost four years here, it’s still hard for me to believe how little Catholics know about us protestants. And that lack of knowledge very quickly turns to fear and suspision (and vice versa). And so maybe for a group of 30 people in a small town outside of Ancona, the Chiesa di Cristo La Via isn’t such a scary place.
During the meeting I quoted a friend of mine, who gave me some wise counsel during a time when I was really unsure about ecumenicalism. He told me that if two groups of people (evangelical and catholic) are genuinely following Christ, then at a certain point our paths will meet. That point in time may be tomorrow or it may be 1,000 years from now. But it will come.
And at that point, this week of prayer for Christian unity may make a little more sense.