I come from a divided family background; I was born from an extramarital relationship of my father. Because of this, he kept my existence a secret, and for a long time—especially as a child—I experienced his temporary absence.
I felt there was something dark or hidden in my story. What I didn’t know was that Jesus would begin a process of radical conversion in my father’s life, one that would lead him to become a Pentecostal pastor.
My story and the sense of abandonment could very well have been reasons to turn away from faith. However, that is not what happened. Faced with the experience of abandonment, I couldn’t help but wonder about the kind of love that, even amid a child’s pain, had reached my father’s life. I often asked myself, “What kind of love is this, capable of piercing through the pain I’m feeling?” At age 16, during a high school graduation cruise, I encountered that love. One evening, sitting at the top of the ship, I clearly heard the Lord’s voice speak to my heart: “You weren’t born to do what your friends are doing, Mayara, you are mine.” Thanks to what began that night, I became a committed Pentecostal.
At the age of 19, I enrolled in the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (Brazil) to study theology. In a story that only the Holy Spirit could write, I became President of the Academic Centre and of the Student Theology Commission for the state of São Paulo. I became good friends with some seminarians, had contact with various dioceses and religious orders and several priests often visited my home. At first, my mother joked, “I never imagined I’d have so many priests in my house, Mayara.”
Through that experience, I decided to write my final thesis on Christian unity. But as I began to explore what path to take, many things happened that led me to reflect on my family history. I went through a deep process of forgiveness and reconciliation. And so, as I forgave, I wrote. I always remembered how painful it can be to come from a divided family. But it was precisely in those moments that the Lord also asked me: “And my family, the Church?” I felt I could and indeed had to, join my experience of abandonment to that of Jesus.
“I decided to write my final thesis on Christian unity (…) and many things happened that led me to reflect on my family history. I went through a deep process of forgiveness and reconciliation.”.
In the photo: Mayara during the Ecumenical Congress in Castel Gandolfo in March 2025
Drawing from the shared heritage of Sacred Scripture, I concluded that painful period with a thesis entitled: “The Spirit and the Bride Say: Come! The Figure of the Bride as a Prophetic Response to the Unity of the Church”. It was this step led me into Catholic-Pentecostal dialogue: with the Commission for Unity of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal-SP and the “We Are One” mission. Founded by laypeople within a Catholic community (Coração Novo–RJ), the We Are One Mission is based on a letter of intent signed by Catholic and Evangelical leaders that outlines four pillars for dialogue: respect for confessional identities, ecclesiality, non-proselytism and a culture of encounter. The city of Rio de Janeiro even officially recognizes a “We Are One Week” which has surprisingly been declared part of the city’s intangible cultural heritage. In practice, the Mission brings together Evangelical, Catholic and Pentecostal leaders with a common purpose: to proclaim the unity of Christians. Theological dialogue was made possible by the creation of a national Catholic-Pentecostal working group (WG). Its aim is to reflect theologically and pastorally on the charismatic-pentecostal experience, starting from the Latin American context. We recently published our first report, the result of our meetings, on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In 2022, the We Are One Youth Mission began, a group in which I am wholeheartedly and actively involved. For these reasons, I see the We Are One Mission as a sign of hope. First, for all the communion I’ve experienced and secondly, because my personal story is undoubtedly intertwined with it.
Entrusted with the role of being “pilgrims of hope,” I would like to conclude with a phrase my father often repeats when telling the story of our family. He says, countless times, that our story was born in pain and wounds but was bathed in God’s infinite love: “Tribulation became vocation.” When my father glimpses this reality, he always quotes St. Paul’s letter to the Romans: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). Paraphrasing this biblical text, during this 2025Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, in the year of the Jubilee and the celebration of many significant anniversaries such as the Council of Nicaea, I am encouraged and led to believe that: amidst so many deep wounds throughout the Church’s history, God is surely making His hope abound.
Much has already been said and much more will be said, about the ecumenical significance of the year 2025. The 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea is just one, albeit a fundamental one, of several important anniversaries for the whole of Christianity being marked this year. But why is it still important to remember Nicaea today? What is its relevance? To understand, we need to take a step back into the fourth century.
In 313, Emperor Constantine granted freedom of worship to Christians, ending religious persecution throughout the empire. Later, in 324, Constantine became sole ruler and absolute authority of both the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. He realized that a doctrinal controversy was threatening the peace of the empire. He decided to convene a council of the entire Church to settle the matter. Though he knew it was a religious issue, he also believed that religious unity was key to political stability. Between 250-318 bishops from all parts of the empire came to Nicaea. The aim was to defend and affirm the apostolic faith and doctrine about the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ, in contrast to the teachings of the priest Arius of Alexandria and his supporters, who claimed that Christ was not eternally divine, but the first and most sublime creature made by God.
Constantinople Gate (Ancient City of Nicaea)Lefke Gate (Nicaea Wall)
It is understandable that such a mystery, the nature of the person of Jesus Christ, posed a challenge to human intellect. But even more compelling was the testimony of the apostles and the many Christians willing to die for this belief. Indeed, many bishops who came to the Council still bore the physical marks of torture and suffering endured for the faith.
Thus, this Council defined the faith that underpins Christianity and is still professed by all Christian Churches: the God revealed by Jesus Christ is one but not solitary. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God in three distinct Persons who have always existed.
Remembering Nicaea today is therefore highly relevant: it was a Council that laid the foundation for the synodal structure of the Church, which we are striving to realize more fully today; it unified the date of Easter for the entire Church (although differences emerged over time due to changes in calendars); and it set out the key points of the Christian faith. In particular, this last aspect challenges us strongly today. Perhaps the tendency to deny the divinity of Christ has never completely disappeared. Today, many find it easier or more comfortable to speak of Jesus focusing on his human qualities, as a wise man, an exemplary figure, a prophet, rather than professing him as the only-begotten Son of God, of one substance with the Father.
Iznik, ancient Nicaea, today a small town in Turkey
Faced with these challenges, we might imagine Jesus asking us today the same question he once asked the apostles: “But who do you say that I am?” (Mt. 16:13–17).
To accept and profess the Nicene Creed together is thus ecumenically significant. Reconciliation among Christians means reconciliation not only with and among today’s Churches, but also with the tradition of the early and apostolic Church.
Considering today’s world, with all its anxieties, problems and hopes, we become even more aware that Christian unity is not only a Gospel imperative, it is also a historical necessity.
If we want to confess together that Jesus is God, then His words, especially what He called His “new commandment,” the very criterion by which the world would recognize us as His disciples, will take on new meaning for us. Living this commandment “will be the only way, or certainly the most effective way, to speak of God today to those who do not believe, to make the Resurrection of Christ translatable into terms that can be understood by people today.”[1]
[1] BENEDETTO XVI, Luce del mondo. Il Papa, la Chiesa e i segni dei tempi. Una conversazione con Peter Seewald, Libreria editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano 2010, p. 98.
An Easter of hope but above all, an Easter to be lived together. In this year 2025, which marks 1,700 years since the Council of Nicaea, Christian Churches will celebrate Easter on the same day: Sunday, 20th April.
This is a wonderful coincidence that calls all Christians to take a decisive step toward unity—a call to rediscover ourselves as united in plurality.
In an age marked by divisions on every front and especially at this time that brings us closer to the mystery of the Resurrection, we would like to share what Chiara Lubich said in Palermo in 1998 about “A Spirituality for Dialogues”, specifically an “ecumenical spirituality.”
It is a direct invitation to respond to the call of mutual love, not as individuals, but together. It is an opportunity to look upon the Jesus Forsaken on the cross as a light which, even in the ultimate sacrifice, not only leads us but becomes the sure pathway along which we can take our steps.
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Already well-publicised and being experienced around the world by many Catholics is the Jubilee Year which this 2025 has ‘Pilgrims of Hope’ as its theme. Millions of people will visit Rome or the various jubilee churches in dioceses around the world, and experience the grace of God’s mercy by praying for forgiveness, resolving to convert one’s life and passing through the holy door, which symbolically reminds us that Christ is “the door”. Why “Pilgrims of hope”? Because we are called to hope.
Less well-known is the fact that 2025 marks two other important anniversaries of great ecumenical significance – the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and the 60th anniversary of the abolition of the mutual excommunications between the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople.
Why is it so important to celebrate an ecclesial meeting that took place 1700 years ago? And why have Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I and other leaders of various Churches chosen to travel to Nicaea in Turkey on 24 May 2025 for a joint commemoration? Every Sunday, Christians from all the different Churches profess the same faith affirmed at that Council. It was precisely at Nicaea, therefore, that the basis of our faith was sealed, God – One and Triune, Jesus Christ – true Man and true God. Knowing that the churches have this basis in common means that praying for unity is both a prayer to achieve it and a celebration of thanksgiving for the unity already exists.
The Council of Nicaea had also set a date for celebrating Easter but, because of the change of calendar in the West that Pope Gregory XIII introduced, the date of this feast often did not coincide for the Eastern and Western Churches. This year, by a lucky coincidence, the dates do coincide. Easter will fall on 20 April 2025 for everyone. Many Christians around the world, including Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew, are promoting the creation of a common calendar that will allow this feast to always coincide with the centre of the Christian faith.
The Focolare Movement is taking the opportunity to celebrate these anniversaries with an international ecumenical conference entitled “Called to hope – key players of dialogue”. In these times of division and great challenges, we are called as Christians to give witness together to the hope that the Gospel brings and to be key players of dialogue and unity, committed to living for peace, building fraternity and spreading hope. Round tables, interviews and testimonies are intended to offer method and spirituality to the dialogue together with examples of good practice and ecumenical pathways that already exist.
