Advertisement Pax ChristiICN Would you like to advertise on ICN? Click to learn more.

Southwark: Lutheran-Catholic Commemoration of Reformation at St George's Cathedral


Image - M Mazur CCN

Image - M Mazur CCN

Source: CCN

A joint commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation was held on Sunday at St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral Southwark, hosted by the Archbishop of Southwark, the Most Reverend Peter Smith.

The Archbishop of Birmingham and Chair of the Bishops' Conference Department of Dialogue and Unity, the Most Reverend Bernard Longley, and Bishop Martin Lind, Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain preached at the commemoration.

In his homily, Archbishop Longley said that we have all too often allowed ourselves to 'be identified and characterised by those features of our Christian traditions that distinguish us from one another.' He reflected on how, in our time 'the Scriptures and our common calling to evangelize bid us trust one another enough to follow the Lord side by side.'

The Archbishop shared how fifty years ago, it would have been impossible to conceive of Catholics and Lutherans meeting together in St George's Cathedral and to 'be able to face the challenging story of the Reformation with equanimity, as well as gratitude for this moment.'

He also highlighted how 'even twenty years ago nobody could have foreseen that Pope Francis would travel to Lund Cathedral to commemorate the Reformation with the President of the Lutheran World Federation and sign the Joint Statement with its five imperatives.'

See: www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/lutheran-fed-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_2013_dal-conflitto-alla-comunione_en.html#Five_Ecumenical_Imperatives_

The Archbishop gave thanks for the 'the exchange of gifts that has taken place here in the UK between Lutherans and Catholics, especially over the last thirty years' and for the many ecumenical friendships which have developed.

Bishop Lind's homily focused on three main points:


• The future unity of the Church should be like the remarriage (to each other) of a previously divorced couple who recognise that things cannot go back to what they were before. 'I don't know if you have ever met a couple that went through a divorce and then, maybe a long time afterwards, found each other again. It is not very common, but it does happen. And I have met such a couple. The most striking was their comments: We have met each other in a new way. We are not going back to what once happened. We are on the way to a new unity, an untried experience.'

• Catholics and Lutherans should cultivate a 'holy jealousy' of the riches of each others' traditions. 'I would like to propose a HOLY JEALOUSY. We should help each other to look on each other with holy eyes: what do you in your church have that we don't have, what do you in your church say that we don't say - and we have to try to find all these things we envy. That is a good exercise and it will help us to keep and develop mutual respect and love.'

• Christian unity is not just about ecclesiastical housekeeping but should provide 'an instrument to heal the whole world.' 'The Christian unity is God's instrument to help the world to reconcile - and we all know that reconciliation in the world is badly needed today.'

Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans (including the Dean of Southwark Anglican Cathedral, and the Archdeacon of Lewisham) and Bishop Howard Tripp (Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus of Southwark) attended the commemoration service.

The full text of Archbishop Longley's homily follows:

You are the salt of the earth.


I am very grateful to Archbishop Peter and to the Dean for welcoming us to St George's Cathedral this afternoon and for hosting this joint commemoration of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation of 1517. It is a powerful sign of our commitment to continue praying and striving for the unity of the Church and it offers us an opportunity to demonstrate the measure of unity in faith which we believe we already enjoy together.

Too often we allow ourselves to be identified and characterised by those features of our Christian traditions that distinguish us from one another. Many of these features have developed over the centuries as the result of our different histories and some of them have been shaped more by the accidents of culture or politics than by the Christian convictions that arise from the Word of God.

In our own time we have a fresh opportunity to stand together in the presence of the Word of God made flesh, to face him beside each other and to listen attentively and obediently to what he says to us in the Scriptures. Our ecumenical journey has encouraged us to come face to face so as to recognise the presence of Christ in one another and in each other's Christian way of life. Now the Scriptures and our common calling to evangelize bid us trust one another enough to follow the Lord side by side.

The Scriptures are the foundations of the life of faith that has been handed down to us to live and to cherish, to develop and to hand on in turn to the coming generations within each of the traditions that have nourished and formed us. The Scriptures are central to the common identity in Christ that we seek to rediscover together. They have the power to draw us closer together as we reflect on their message and as we treasure the rich legacy they entrust to us.

At the same time, growing understanding between our traditions and a deepening affection in Christ have enabled us to gather and to remember the events of the Reformation together. Fifty years ago it would have been impossible to imagine Catholics and Lutherans meeting here at St George's Cathedral, on the basis of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification agreed by our two Communions in 1999, and that we should be able to face the challenging story of the Reformation with equanimity as well as gratitude for this moment.

Even twenty years ago nobody could have foreseen that Pope Francis would travel to Lund Cathedral to commemorate the Reformation with Bishop Munib Younan, the President of the Lutheran World Federation and sign the Joint Statement with its five imperatives:

• We commit ourselves to further growth in communion rooted in Baptism, as we seek to remove the remaining obstacles that hinder us from attaining full unity

• renewing our commitment to theological dialogue

• We pray to God that Catholics and Lutherans will be able to witness together to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, inviting humanity to hear and receive the good news of God's redeeming action

• That we may stand together in service, upholding human dignity and rights, especially for the poor, working for justice, and rejecting all forms of violence

• We pray for a change of hearts and minds that leads to a loving and responsible way to care for creation.

Today offers all of us an opportunity to re-commit ourselves to work and pray for Christian unity. The pathway towards that unity is to be found in obedience to the call of Christ, as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount: You are the salt of the earth. Our Lord urges us to become more and more what he tells us we already have the capacity to be. Christian witness is indispensable for the inner health and well-being of the whole of humanity. As the salt of the earth we can enable others to savour more fully the gift and the meaning of life itself.

The work of Christian unity is directly linked with the search for justice and peace that lies at the heart of the Church's mission. The Church is called to demonstrate not uniformity but the kind of unanimity that characterises the Kingdom of God. To be the salt of the earth is to be at the service of the world.

Today we give thanks for the exchange of gifts that has taken place here in the UK between Lutherans and Catholics, especially over the last thirty years. I recall with gratitude the ecumenical heart of Dean Lennart Shöström from the Ulrika Eleonora Swedish Church in Marylebone and his encouragement for the Joint Lutheran-Catholic pilgrimage to the Shrine of St Bridget at Vadstena.

I also remember the steady commitment of the Reverend Tom Bruch at the Lutheran Council of Great Britain in fostering fruitful Lutheran-Catholic relations and the friendships we have enjoyed with Bishop Walter Jagucki and Bishop Jana Jeruma-Grinberga as Bishop Lind's predecessors. These ecumenical friendships, in which we recognise the grace-filled fruitfulness of each other's ministries, are among the gifts already exchanged which enable us to be at home with one another today.

In Evangelii Gaudium - The Joy of the Gospel - Pope Francis recognises the unity that comes from our focus on the Word of God and allowing the Holy Spirit to be our guide:

How many important things unite us! If we really believe in the abundantly free working of the Holy Spirit, we can learn so much from one another! It is not just about being better informed about others, but rather about reaping what the Spirit has sown in them, which is also meant to be a gift for us...Through an exchange of gifts, the Spirit can lead us ever more fully into truth and goodness.

By allowing ourselves to be transformed together we can hope to give a more credible witness to Christ who sends us into the world and who assures us again: You are the salt of the earth.

Bishop Martin Lind's sermon at the Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017

Dear Sisters and Brothers!
It is a great joy for me to be here and I thank Archbishop Peter and the preparing committee for inviting me to preach.
It is a joy to preach together with Archbishop Bernard, whom I know since long time ago and who once was a pilgrim to Vadstena in my old diocese in Sweden at a joint English Catholic-Lutheran pilgrimage.

Jesus prayed according to S. John's Gospel: As you, Father, are in me and I in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 17, 21)

We want unity.
We want Christian unity.
We want unity between Catholics and Lutherans.
We want unity between Catholics and Anglicans - this has to be said in England.

Some will not agree - we know. But I am convinced that a growing number does, not least among our younger Church members.

We are in Search of Lost Unity. (Marcel Proust)

You may say: we were once married. The marriage was broken in a divorce. Now we have to reconcile and unite again.

I don't know if you have ever met a couple that went through a divorce and then, maybe a long time afterwards, found each other again.
It is not very common, but it does happen. And I have met such a couple. The most striking was their comments: We have met each other in a new way. We are not going back to what once happened. We are on the way to a new unity, an untried experience.

If we, Catholics and Lutherans, today want to unite we are not going back to the 16th century. We look forwards and try to find the visible unity in future.

Life is never a repetition. It is brand new every day.
Or with our Christian language: Life is a gift of the Spirit.

Jesus prays for unity. That does not mean that the members loose their identity. The unity is strictly analogous to the unity of the Father and the Son. The Father and the Son are one and yet remain distinct. The believers are to be one, in the Father and the Son, distinct from God and abiding in God.

This is of utmost importance. Unity, Christian unity, never means a denial of our identity. On the opposite - it is an acceptance of the identities of each one of us.

I would like to propose a HOLY JEALOUSY. We should help each other to look on each other with holy eyes: what do you in your church have that we don't have, what do you in your church say that we don't say - and we have to try to find all these things we envy.
That is a good exercise and it will help us to keep and develop mutual respect and love.

The unity that Jesus is praying for underlines at least three perspectives:

1
Belonging. We all belong to one humanity since we have the same Creator. And we belong to the same Church since we have the same Saviour. There is only one Saviour in this world according to our faith.
So whatever we think and reflect and confess we are already bound together in a holy belonging because we have the same Creator and the same Saviour, Jesus Christ.
This is the fundament of the Christian unity.

2
Unity, which we long for, is not uniformity.
There has neither been a uniformed world, nor a uniformed church. That is all illusion. We are all products of a giant plural, a giant diversity. Every genealogical research will immediately confirm that.
The diversity and the manifoldness is holy, given by God, so that we may learn to respect each other.

3
The unity of the Church if not an end in itself.
We are not fighting for a Christian unity just for ourselves, within safe walls. We are fighting for a visible unity of the Church of Jesus Christ to help the world to believe. The Christian unity is God's instrument to help the world to reconcile - and we all know that reconciliation in the world is badly needed today.

Finally, Sisters and Brothers, I want to remind you that the visible unity of the Church of Jesus Christ completely is a gift of the Spirit.
We have to work for it, fight for it, struggle for it and pray for it.
But God alone will give us the unity, in the time and in the way God wishes.

Do never end your prayers for the unity, the visible unity of the Church of Jesus Christ. Open your hands, open your hearts, open your minds and open yourself for the gift which God wants to give.

Adverts

SPICMA

We offer publicity space for Catholic groups/organisations. See our advertising page if you would like more information.

We Need Your Support

ICN aims to provide speedy and accurate news coverage of all subjects of interest to Catholics and the wider Christian community. As our audience increases - so do our costs. We need your help to continue this work.

You can support our journalism by advertising with us or donating to ICN.

Mobile Menu Toggle Icon