Prayer unifies different faith paths

‘We are earthen vessels, carrying God’s treasure’ —Unity week theme

By RENATO GANDIA
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

The event is co-sponsored by the archdiocesan commission for Ecumenical and Faith Relations, Young Adult ministry and St. Charles Parish’s Social Justice/Ecumenical committee.

“We will be thrilled if this goes beyond the city,” Julien Hammond, director of Ecumenical and Faith Relations, told the WCR.

“We are earthen vessels, carrying God’s treasure,” is this year’s theme of the celebration.

The annual citywide prayer service to open the week will be sponsored by the United Church at Robert Wesley United Church, Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. with the Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton, general secretary of Canadian Council of Churches, as guest preacher.

This yearly event is organized by Edmonton’s Council of Churches.

On Jan. 24 at 10 a.m., St. Joseph’s College is sponsoring a free lecture on the topic, “Orthodox-Catholic dialogue: End of the road?” by Father Ronald Robertson director of the secretariat for ecumenical and inter-religious affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Newman Thelogical College is holding its annual celebration featuring a noon-hour liturgy presided at by different Christian traditions.

“We’re going to end with a silent bang, because we’re hoping to have a large Taize (prayer service),” said Hammond.

“We’re going to end with a silent bang.” - Julien Hammond

Taize is a loosely structured ecumenical service that features Scripture reading, repetitive but meditative singing, all with the goal of enabling participants to open themselves to the voice of God and discover the prayer within themselves.

“This is an archdiocesan event, but we would like to invite the ecumenical community to close together the Christian Unity week,” Hammond said.

“We want to highlight solidarity by emphasizing how individual prayers connect to the communal prayer.”

The point is to bring together the people in a prayer form that is not threatening for anyone.

“To be in silence, be together as a body of Christ. That is the bottom line, the fact that we can come together,” Hammond said.

Hammond believes the Holy Spirit is truly at work with this initiative. Before his commission even spoke with the two other co-sponsors, they have already been thinking of organizing a gathering like this for the Christian Unity Week.

Much to his surprise, the Young Adult ministry was thinking of the same thing as well as the Social Justice/Ecumenical committee of St. Charles Parish.

This will be a good time to re-energize the passion among the youth generated by the WYD, said Hammond.

Andrew Papenbrock, coordinator of Young Adult ministry, saw the positive response of people to Taize when they featured it during the Days in the Diocese, in preparation for the World Youth Day.

Most of the people they have talked to want to have the same experience.

“The interest was there and to do this at the closing of the Christian Unity week is really exciting because we can share the experience with our brothers and sisters in Christ.”

Archbishop Thomas Collins, Canadian Conference Catholic Bishops’ head of ecumenical and interfaith relations told the WCR, “I think we have a very good ecumenical relations and cooperation in Canada. I think this is a real blessing and one of the hopeful signs for the future.”

He noted however there are many issues that need to be resolved before there could be full unity between the Catholic church and various other Christian churches. Some significant doctrinal issues need to be settled because they are “important because they relate to our understanding of faith.

“As we hope for full unity to happen and while we work on that, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us.”

Nevertheless, Collins reminded there are all kinds of ways Catholics should work together with people of other faith traditions, such as in areas of social justice and public ecumenical prayer services. The mandate of the Archbishop’s commission is to dialogue with other Christian and non-Christian traditions and to also help the Catholic church and its people to become more aware of the importance of ecumenism.

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