Focolare Movement

For Christian Unity

Jan 24, 2016

Prayers and gestures of mutual acceptance during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18-25 January). Reflections by Fr Pasquale Foresi (1929-2015), former co-president of the Focolare Movement.

PasqualeForesi_con giovani“Among Christians there is an experience that is similar to married life. Inevitably difficulties between the couple arise. Only if there is love these difficulties serve to maintain love and enable unity to grow among them. When love is absent, problems become an insurmountable obstacle and they are given as an excuse in the event of a separation. But in reality it is not the problems that have destroyed the family, but the lack of love. So it is between the Churches. The division happened not only because of religious or theological differences, but also – and at times foremost – because of political, economic or cultural motives. In the measure that love grows, disunity becomes unbearable and problems are overcome. I think that one day the various Churches, without abandoning their own traditions and legitimate expressions that have developed throughout history, can participate together, when God wills, in a Council that will unite them and which will ensure that the Church, while being one, retains many of these expressions. The time is perhaps premature, but in a single day God can make us live a thousand years. It will be an event which will have a profound impact on all members of the great religions.” From “COLLOQUI”Pasquale Foresi Città Nuova 2009 – pp. 155-156-161

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