Our Priority Commitment
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - January 14, 2005
Right before Christmas, as he met with his chief collaborators in the Roman Curia, Pope John Paul II made a statement that caught many in the media — and in the Church — off-guard. What he said may also surprise Anchor readers.
He very succinctly stated what the Church's principal goal is.
While there are many complementary ways in which the Church's main purpose — the fulfillment of Christ's mission for the salvation of the world —could be phrased, the fact that John Paul II chose the language he did really gives us a window into what motivates all that he does and what he hopes will motivate all that we are doing:
"Communion with God and unity among all people, beginning with believers, is our priority commitment."
Many thought such a commitment was a novelty, but there is a long-prehistory to this primacy of focus. It's as old and as new as the Eucharist.
In his prayer during the Last Supper, Jesus poured out his heart to his heavenly Father, and asked for something positively incredible for us, his followers: "May they be all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. … May they become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (Jn 17:20-23).
Jesus, whose petitions were always heard by the Father (Jn 11:42), prayed that we might have a communion with God and with each other analogous to the PERFECT COMMUNION of the persons of the Blessed Trinity.
In heaven, of course, we will experience that communion with Father, Son and Holy Spirit and, through our communion with God, with the communion of saints. But Jesus was praying for that union in THIS world. He specified two reasons why: to convince the world that Jesus was sent by the Father and that the Father loves us as he loves Christ.
Jesus saw the loving communion of his disciples, therefore, as the greatest witness of his divine mission and authority and as the greatest testimony of our being beloved children of God. This truth has a crucial corollary: when this communion is absent, Jesus' identity and our identity are both obscured. Without this communion, Christ is misunderstood and man is lost. This is precisely why communion with God and unity among all people, beginning with believers, MUST BE our priority commitment.
It has clearly been Pope John Paul II's priority commitment. Despite his obvious frailties, he has continued to labor, with patient urgency, to reunite the separated children of God. His ecumenical endeavors — even in the past year — are too many to name, but two were especially significant and hopeful. They also show his particular style of "spiritual ecumenism."
The first was the return, in August, of the image of Our Lady of Kazan to the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow. This image was taken out of Russia a century ago and kept outside to protect it from the communists. Eventually, through the help of American benefactors, it was obtained and given to Pope John Paul II. The Pope then began to plan to return this most venerated image of the Mother of God in Orthodox Christianity, one day, to Russia. For the Holy Father, this action was more than one of good will: it was an attempt explicitly to involve the powerful intercession of the Mother of the Church in bringing her separated children back together.
The second endeavor happened in November, when the Pope returned the relics of SS. Gregory Nazianzen (d. 390) and John Chrysostom (d. 407) to the Patriarch of Constantinople. Nazianzen and Chrysostom were both patriarchs of Constantinople prior to the Orthodox schism. Their relics had been brought to Rome in order to protect them from destruction by 8th century iconoclasts (Nazianzen) and 13th century Muslims (Chrysostom). They were placed under altars in St. Peter's basilica as a tangible sign of the unity between East and West. The pope, in giving them back to their successor, was in essence commissioning them to go to their former See to work for the unity of the Church, a unity they knew during their lifetimes.
In both cases, the Pope was involving the communion of saints in the Church triumphant to bring about the communion of the Church on earth.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which begins on January 18, is an occasion for all of us in that Church on earth to recommit ourselves, with fervor and patient urgency, to this priority of communion with God and with each other.
Such unity was Christ's dying wish. It is his living wish. May it be ours, so that the world may know Jesus Christ and the depth of the Father's love.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
