1. Introduction

I am glad to be among you in this congress of religious, committed to the deepening of the ecumenical problem.

I arrived just yesterday evening from Porto Alegre in Brazil, where the World Council of Churches is holding the IX plenary Assembly. It was a very interesting experience participated by the Catholic Church as guest, since we are not members of the above-mentioned Council.  However, they received us with a warm welcome and with signs of sincere friendship. This is actually the result of an ecumenical journey that, according to John Paul II, has led us to the re-discovery of fraternity.

 Brought up in a Catholic village during the Second World War, in my youth I never entered a Protestant Church: it was unconceivable at that time. Today, I attend it freely, to celebrate the Liturgy of the Word with our separated brothers.

We live in a completely changed situation. Many differences and problems are still there, but we breathe a substantial climate of friendship. The way to full unity is still quite long, but we can already live together, work and pray together. This is not an irrelevant achievement!

Today, after Vatican II, whose documents textually state, “The re-establishment of unity that all the Christians have to promote, is one of the main intentions of Vatican II”,[1] the ecumenism is the high way, which the Church intends to journey along.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, too, assumed and indicated it as a pastoral priority of his Pontificate, with his first message to the Cardinals who had elected him. «In full awareness, at the beginning of his ministry in the Church of Rome which Peter sprinkled with his blood, his actual successor assumes the primary commitment of re-building the full and visible unity of all the followers of Christ”. This is his ambition and impellent duty.[2]

This priority does not concern only the Popes, the Cardinals, the Bishops and the professors in theology. It must be the main task of each Christian, of each baptised and, in the first line, of the religious who commit themselves with the vows to live Baptism in its fullness. 

The ecumenism is a new dimension that, as Catholic Church, we have re-discovered and incremented, above all during the past forty years.

We have walked a long way and made concrete gestures from our first timid steps. The qualified presence of various Christian confessions, in the on going meeting of Porto Alegre, documents this. They are Eastern Orthodox: Copts, Syrians, Armenians, representatives of Russian and Greek Orthodoxy. There are Anglicans, Lutherans and the Reformed. It is a vast and differentiated landscape, but all the participants share the same faith in Jesus Christ. They have in common the Bible and the Baptism in the name of Jesus. We are “already” in communion, though imperfectly.

2. Consecrated life and Ecumenism

To be consecrated to Christ means to surrender one’s own life to Him for His Church, for the Kingdom and, therefore, implicitly for the cause of unity.

With this regard, I often quote a sentence of His Holiness John Paul II. “To believe in Christ means to want unity; to want unity means to want the Church; to want the Church means to want the communion of grace that corresponds to the design of the Father from eternity. This is the meaning of the prayer of Christ “Ut unum sint”.[3]

These realities are so much inseparable, as it is impossible “to believe”, namely to adhere vitally to Christ, without feeling to be a living part of the Church and without assuming her great aims.  No, we cannot separate Christ from his Church and the Church from the cause of unity, which is the immense desire of the Heart of Jesus. This is why consecration to Christ means consecration for the Church and her unity.  There is an inseparable relation between consecrated life and ecumenism.

The design of God from eternity is that of summing up all things in Christ.[4]  In Him and through Him, God wants to be “all in all”.[5] Unity is the horizon embracing not only the whole Church, but the entire world also.

It is not by chance that the key-term in the Bible is “one”: one God, one Redeemer and Lord, one Spirit, one Baptism, one faith and, therefore, also one Church.

The prayer of Jesus at the eve of his death, “That they may be one, Father”, flows from this fundamental exigency of unity. The circumstance of the imminence of his passage from the world to the Father turns it into his testament. A testament is always something sacred, which we must safeguard and apply. We see in it the “Great Charter” of ecumenism.

Jesus has wanted one Church founded on Peter and the Apostles. Divisions are contrary to his will and represent a scandal for the world. They damage the credibility of the Church and the “most holy cause of preaching the Gospel to all creatures”.[6]

In one of my journeys, I went to South Africa for a conference. We lodged in a hotel. On a Sunday I manifested the desire of going to a Catholic Church for the Holy Mass. We took a taxi. On the way the sight of many churches struck me: there were twenty of them in a single street. There was the Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church and some local ones. I tried to imagine what the non-Christian thought of us. What an image of disunity we give! True, today we live peacefully, but this does not mean that our fragmentation does not cause scandal.

The same happens in the Middle east, where the population is prevalently Muslim in its majority. Even there we find a multiplicity of churches not living in communion. They cannot celebrate even Easter together. Naturally, this separation is harmful for the cause of Christianity.

The unity of Christians is a pre-supposition for the mission of the Church, especially today, in our  “globalized” society, where the mass-media abolish distances.

This is why the re-establishing of unity among the Christians is the principal aim of Vatican II. It is an irreversible choice,[7] as John Paul II often underlined, and as the present Pontiff re-affirms, taking his position on this argument from the very start of his pontificate.

The Ministry of Peter is a ministry of unity not only within the Catholic Church, but also among all the Christians. This is a service reserved primarily, but not exclusively, to the Pope. Every Christian must shoulder it and, in the first line, the religious in virtue of their consecration to Christ, consequently to unity. To believe in Christ and to be consecrated to Him means to be consecrated to unity. 

3. The foundation, the goal and the method of ecumenism

It is important to underline that ecumenism, according to Vatican II, has nothing in common with relativism and syncretism that turn all the confessions into a mixture. No! It is ecumenism in charity and in truth, or the truth in charity.[8]

It is also in the truth, because love that is not true is dishonest. On the other side, also the truth without love poses problems: it becomes a weapon to fight against others.  Love and truth are joined one with the other. It is not the question of abandoning one’s own faith, the catholic faith or any other confession, but of conducting a dialogue assumed according to the definition given by John Paul II. It is an exchange of gifts. 

Not only an exchange of ideas among discussing professors, appealing to one’s own competence, perhaps wanting to show of knowing more than others know. No! The ecumenical dialogue is an exchange of gifts,[9] where each can learn from the other.

The conviction that the Catholic Church is the true Church does not deny the possibility that the Catholics may learn from others. For instance, from the Council onward, we have re-discovered the importance of the Bible and of preaching, welcoming what the Protestants offered us. Of course, we knew it in theory also before, but we had practically almost forgotten the Bible and, through the dialogue, we have brought it back. On the other side, the Protestants are learning from us the importance of the sacramental symbolism and the liturgical language

Therefore, it is not the matter of denying one’s own identity, but of enriching it.  The speaking of “conversion”, stating that there is no ecumenism without it,[10] must not lead us to error. Of course, conversion is necessary for an ecumenical journey, but we must not refer it only to others. All of us need to be converted, starting from ourselves.  We must do this not in the sense that we must quit our faith, but in the sense of enriching and deepening it. If all of us turn to Christ, we shall surely reach unity in Christ and among us.

This is a journey, which projects us into the future; it is a going forward and not a going back to the XVI century. We cannot cancel history, but we can and must convert ourselves to Christ, learning from one another

Sometimes, the difficulties of dialogue depend on the difference of cultures and of the consequent mentality. This is what happens with the orthodox Christians.

The dogmatic differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxy are not many. The most relevant one is that concerning the Primacy of the Pope, which for us means a precious gift, while they do not admit it. However, we share the same faith in the seven sacraments present in both confessions, the veneration of the saints, particularly of Mary. Also among them there is the institution of the episcopate, which guarantees the apostolic succession.

From their spirituality, we can learn a more acute sense of the mystery and the stupendous majesty of the liturgical rites, much richer than ours.

However, we find it difficult to be friendly with them because of the different mentality. It is easier, for instance, to open a dialogue with the Protestants, though they are more distant from us from the theological viewpoint. We have Baptism in common with them, but not the other sacraments. The lack of the Eucharist and of priesthood is a problem, yet the common Western mentality facilitates the relations and favours friendship. This is actually an essential and inalienable element for our ecumenical journey.  

The documents are undoubtedly important, yet the Holy Spirit at Pentecost did not reach  in  “paper” but in “fire”. Now the fire burns the papers.

We need to make friends, to meet vis-à-vis and to speak. In friendly dialogue, we discover the reciprocal richness, we learn to appreciate one another and start a fruitful exchange of gifts, which is fundamental. The ecumenism of life concretises in greetings, in prayer made together and in the attention we pay to one another. They are short steps in the daily life of our existence, but indispensable to favour the encounter.

Taken in this sense, ecumenism is not a task only of experts, nor a form of diplomacy: it is the task of all Christians.

4. The spiritual ecumenism

Unity is not a goal we can attain with our own strength, but a gift of the Holy Spirit, which we have to invoke with prayer, in syntony with the desire of Jesus, “That they may be one”. This tells us the importance of the week of prayer for the unity of Christians, which builds up the ecumenical centre of the liturgical year. This is the context of the council statement, which indicates the heart of ecumenism in the spiritual ecumenism.  What do we mean by this expression?

The term “spirituality” today is ambiguous and very much in use, thus becoming a simple slogan, indicating something purely emotive, almost an escape from the objective truth.    

If we use it appropriately, instead, the term indicates a style, a conduct of life, a human existence guided by the Holy Spirit.

In the spirituality, the Christian treasures up the Gospel of Christ interpreted by the doctrine of the Church. We can therefore, define spirituality as the lived subjective expression of the objective message from the Gospel. Consequently, we cannot appeal to spirituality simply to avoid the theological reflection. In fact, it is just the spirituality that demands reflection, to go deep into the evangelical message and, therefore, to assume it in life.

The discernment of the spirits is as important as the theological reflection.

In this area, the great masters of spiritual life have left for us a rich treasure of experience, proposing some rules to discern the spirits. It is worthwhile to read them again. It is enough to remember St. Ignatius of Loyola and his “Spiritual exercises”.

Here, however, we adopt another method, trying to illustrate three dimensions of the activity of the Holy Spirit based on the testimony of the Scriptures.

a)    The universal efficacy               

The Spirit of God is the Spiritus Creator: all things take their origin from Him and He is present and active in creation. “The spirit of the Lord fills the world, and that which holds everything together knows every word said”.[11] He groans and suffers in the desire of creation that “is waiting with eagerness for the children of God to be revealed”.[12]

His presence extends everywhere and we can experience it in not only the religious and Christian area, but also everywhere. According to Vatican II, the Spirit is present and efficaciously active in the other religions, too. .It permeates the cultures, solicits the human progress,[13]  and orients everything towards the realisation of God’s Kingdom.

Spirituality is, therefore, a staying in the listening to the Spirit, catching His presence everywhere, primarily in life, in the human life with all its manifestations. Therefore, we cannot reduce it to a private, intimate and shut up affair. By its very nature it carries with itself an ecumenical issue, it cannot but be ecumenical, namely it is open to the motions of the Spirit wherever He manifests himself

In particular, he is solicitous to welcome the cry of the sufferers, oppressed by any form of poverty. He is attentive to the tensions that tear the world to pieces, as well as to the question underpinned in certain behaviours of the youth. It seems that the youths are indifferent, far from religious values, while they conceal an unquenchable nostalgia of God, nourished by the constant presence of the Spirit in them.

Therefore, the term “spirituality” embraces a much vaster horizon. It incarnates itself in every sphere of life, mainly there where life is born, or where it suffers oppression. We need to perceive the call of the Spirit, and this demands sensitivity, the capacity of catching and of committing ourselves to the place where He goes.

Since the Spirit does not know barriers, it is possible, rather dutiful that the Christians join together in a common service, that they co-operate to promote justice and peace, and to safeguard the environment. We can and must give our testimony to the world.

b)     The Christological base  

The Spirit we are speaking of is not a vague force: it is the Spirit of Jesus Christ,[14] the Spirit of the Lord.[15] Thanks to his creative action, Jesus took flesh in the virginal womb of Mary[16], therefore, He is her creature. In his Baptism at the Jordan, the Spirit alights again on Him [17]  informing his life and action.[18] Through Christ, the Spirit will pour himself into the Church and will extend his influence throughout the entire world.[19]

Consequently, no discernment of the spirits will ever be possible without a confrontation with the person and the word of Jesus, from whom all the Christian confessions take their origin. It will be, therefore, the Gospel to offer us the parameters to know, time after time, if our discernment comes from the Holy Spirit or from the spirit of the world.

The centrality of the person of Jesus confers an essentially Christ-centred trait to the ecumenical spirituality, inserting it in the channel of the Christian spirituality. This avoids the risk of relativism and spiritual syncretism, which put everything on the same level, without distinguishing between ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue. The opening to the Muslims, the Buddhists and Hindus is good and necessary, but we must not confuse it with the ecumenical approach, whose foundation is the same faith in Jesus Christ and whose unyielding point of reference is the Bible. 

The ecumenical spirituality is primarily a Biblical spirituality, expressed in the reading and shared study of the Word of God, as well as a sacramental spirituality based on the common Baptism. We, Christians of every confession can come together for the listening to the Word of God, a “wise” reading, without any academic form and tending to illumine our life. It will be a prayerful coming together to be in syntony with the Spirit.

In this “discipleship of the Word”, we can avail ourselves of the rich patristic contribution, once put aside and now made the object of a renewed interest. We can stay together at the school of the Fathers, setting off with a fruitful and vital study. We can do it in a serious approach, with discussions free from a polemic spirit, with contributions fetched from the richness matured in the different confessions.

I have personally had the chance of reading Luther. Yes, some of his writings are strongly of a polemic character, but there are also precious Biblical commentaries. I have found also various Protestant Biblical studies, which are quite enriching.

The common reading of the Word of God has brought us close to each other.  

In this light, we need to appreciate and increase our interest for the Holy Scripture, which is going to affirm itself more and more in the area of religious life. The books circulating among the religious before the Council were exclusively books of meditation or ascetical readings, anyhow edifying ones. Now, we create more space for the Bible and this is quite relevant to the end of an ecumenical sensitivity.

The spiritual ecumenism includes a sacramental dimension near the Biblical one. Jesus Christ is present and active in both the Word and the Sacraments.

A particular accent falls on the sacrament of Baptism, being it present in all the Christian confessions as an access into the Mystical Body of Christ in the quality of his members. Here we find the root of the communion we already have with all the other Christians.  

Our being engrafted in Christ makes the difference between Christians, though of different confessions, and non-Christians. This difference is qualitative, clearly distinguishing the dialogue we can have with the Muslims, with the members of other religions, and the dialogue with those who share the same faith in Christ.

We can reflect on the meaning of Baptism with those who share our faith. We can occasionally share liturgical celebrations to make them “memorial”. This is something very important.

This sacrament represents also another element of value in the ecumenical opening of Religious Life. In fact, religious consecration is nothing but the commitment to live the baptismal promises radically. Now, it is just at this level that we can overcome certain barriers and find solid points of contacts

In virtue of Baptism, we can share the freedom of the children of God. By calling him God, “Abba-Father”, we can join the prayer of Jesus, which is summed up in the “Ut unum sint”, and treasures it up. The ecumenical spirituality fetches from here the consistence of he tentative to recompose the unity of the Body of Christ

This enterprise is other than easy! We witness known oppositions along with the desired consensus. Sometimes we find difficult also to pray together. This is a scandal, which, however, we are going to overcome.  

c)   The life of the Church  

The Church is the temple of the Holy Spirit,[20] therefore, the ecumenical spirituality is also an ecclesial spirituality tending to the “sentire ecclesiam”, to assume personally what the Church lives. An ecclesial spirituality cannot help feeling wounded by divisions and suffering because of them.

I have had the chance of growing in friendship with many members of other Christian confessions: it would be impossible to open a dialogue without this premise. In the meetings, it happens that I share their “Supper” and they share our “Eucharist, without the possibility of our going to communion with them, and their going to communion with us. Every time this is a “healthy” wound, that spurs us to try our utmost to the end of recomposing unity and sharing our gifts.

It is here that the ecumenical spirituality carries on a prophetic role, reminding the Church her commitment to try her utmost in order to overcome our divisions.

We know that there are persons who oppose this journey because of a misunderstood sense of identity, just as if unity might nullify the specific characteristics of every confession

The identity must be defended, but remembering that identity is not a shut up reality. The personal identity does not create a crisis when it relates with parents, brothers, sisters or colleagues. They somehow belong to me.  It is just in these relations that our identity clarifies and defines itself. Identity is a reality open to others, it is a condition of life, even at ecclesial level.

The ecclesial spirituality leads us to grow in friendship with other Christians, pointing at what joins us, which is much more than what divides us. 

There are, indeed, differences even in essential elements, and we cannot deny it. Unluckily they are there! To acknowledge them objectively, without denying or lessening them, means to make ecumenism in the truth.

What we must try to avoid is the attitude, assumed in the past, of pointing only at what divides us thus reaching the level of controversy. Let us try to see first what we have in common and, in this fundamentally positive context, we can consider the differences.

The starting point is very important. In the first case, we rest our foot on the battle and we can only fight; in the second case we open the way to a serene and friendly dialogue, aiming at the full communion.

Thus, with John Paul II we can say that the ecumenical spirituality is a spirituality of communion. He himself explains the meaning of this expression, “Spirituality of communion means (…) the capacity of feeling the brother in faith in the deep unity of the mystical body. Therefore, we mean the capacity of seeing him like “one who belongs to us”. It means also the capacity of sharing his joys and sufferings, of perceiving his desires and of taking care of his needs, offering him a true and deep friendship. The Spirituality of communion is also the capacity of seeing primarily the positive aspects in the other, to welcome and appreciate him as a gift of God “to me”, through the brother who has received it directly from Him. Finally, the spirituality of communion is the ability of “creating space” for the brother, ” carrying each other’s burden” (Gal. 6, 2),and chasing away the selfish temptations, which constantly try to seduce us, generating competition, careerism, diffidence, jealousies. Without this spiritual journey, the external instruments of communion would be of no value. In fact, they would become an apparatus without soul, masks of communion, rather than ways of its expression and growth.[21]

The spirituality of communion leads us “to share joys and sufferings”. We do not rejoice when others suffer crises or have problems: we suffer with them, while we rejoice at their progress.

The spirituality of communion implies also the capacity of paying attention to the positive aspects of the other and that of not giving in to the spontaneous tendency of catching the negative from diversities.

We soon see the differences in the Protestants, in the Orthodox; we see whatever negative in them. On the other side, they, too, see what is negative in our position. It is normal, because we, too, are a church of sinners! Why do we not acknowledge it?

We must not close our eyes on eventual lacks or faults, but we must start also to give value to all we discover as enriching in the other. We must see and speak of what is positive and appreciate it as a gift for us, just as it is for the brother who has received it directly from the Spirit. Similarly, the gifts bestowed on us by the same Spirit are also for them.  This is a spirituality of communion.

Finally, spirituality of communion is “to create a space for the brother carrying each other’s burden”. We must eliminate the excess of zeal that shuts us up and chases away the others, so that we may say, “You can exist, you have the right to exist!

Create a space! “Try to chase away the selfish temptations constantly attempting to seduce us and to generate competition, careerism, diffidence and jealousies”. These are errors made in the past, jealousies causing the contra-position of various churches.

“Let us not deceive ourselves. The external instruments of communion would be good for nothing, without this spiritual journey”. Unity will never be possible without it. There can be an apparatus without soul, masks of communion, more than ways of expression and growth”.

This spirituality of communion is an ecumenical spirituality.

Conclusion

From the very beginning, the ecumenism has affirmed itself with the impulse of the Holy Spirit, not with the spirit of the world. The Council expressly says, “Through the impulse and grace of the Holy Spirit, an every day ampler movement is motivating the re-establishment of union among Christian separated brothers” [22].

The last century has been a very dark century, with two world wars. It has been a terrible century! However, there have been lights, too, and a growth of the ecumenism. We do hope that during the present XXI century the seed may bear fruit. The ecumenism is due to an impulse of the Spirit: it is a spiritual phenomenon. The unity of Christians can be only a gift from Him, the fruit of a new Pentecost, which Pope John XXIII mentioned at the beginning of Vatican II.

I am convinced that, if we try our best, the Spirit of God will one day grant us a renewed Pentecost..

When, where and how will he grant it?  We cannot make any prediction about the time and modality of the Spirit’s action. We can only act “hic and nunc”, here and now. 

However, I am convinced that the Spirit is faithful. He will bring to fulfilment all that he has initiated.

We have already done a lot and are grateful for it. Now we must go on along this ecumenical way, carrying on our own role: the Pope, the Cardinals, the Bishops and also the Sisters.

Near the irreplaceable and most precious contribution of prayer, the Church expects from the religious the will of assuming the ecumenical spirituality with increased awareness, by deepening the meaning of their belonging to Christ. The Church inspires them to re-connect more vitally their vows to Baptism, with the daily nourishment of God’s Word and by assuming welcoming attitudes of availability and dialogue, with the attention of catching and appreciating the positive elements present in the other.