{"id":306638,"date":"2018-11-14T01:10:38","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T00:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/the-holy-spirit-soul-of-the-ecumenical-journey\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:38:33","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:38:33","slug":"the-holy-spirit-soul-of-the-ecumenical-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/the-holy-spirit-soul-of-the-ecumenical-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holy Spirit, soul of the ecumenical journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>How does the Holy Spirit work in today\u2019s Church?<\/strong> Does it still make sense to talk about an ecumenical journey at a time marked by fragmentation, complexity, scandals and humanitarian challenges even for Christians? Two years after the Lund event, that gave a new impetus to the ecumenical dialogue, 40 Bishops of various Churches, from 18 different countries, met in Sigtuna, Sweden<\/a><\/strong>. This conference, promoted by the Focolare Movement, was held from 6 to 9 November and its theme was \u201cThe Breath of the Spirit, the Church in today\u2019s world\u201d.<\/strong> Maria Voce, president of the Focolare Movement, Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n co-president and representatives of the Focolare Community in Sweden also attended this conference. Maria Voce<\/a> spoke about \u201cThe Breath of the Spirit, soul of the Church, in the experience and thought of Chiara Lubich<\/a>\u201d<\/strong>, while Jes\u00fas Mor\u00e1n<\/a> presented present-day challenges from the perspective of the spirituality of unity.<\/a> This conference, which has come to its 37th edition, owes its origin to an experience of synodality and communion, which John Paul II<\/strong> had proposed to Klaus Hemmerle<\/a>, Bishop of Aachen. \"\"<\/a>\u201cIn addition to our different recounts, we wanted to give ample space to dialogue and sharing about the ecumenical challenges we live in our countries and continents\u201d, said Cardinal Francis Kriengsak Kovithavanij, Archbishop of Bangkok and moderator of the conference.<\/strong> Mons. Brendan Leahy, the Catholic Bishop of the diocese of Limerick<\/strong>, Ireland<\/a> dealt with the important theme of reconciliation. While speaking about the power of forgiveness in the context of the scandals that hit the Irish Church, he said: \u201cThe Spirit urges us not to be robbed of hope (see Rom 8). Discouragement is a great temptations, but the Spirit keeps our hope alive and helps us restart to live a new committment in the Christian adventure of unity and reconciliation\u201d. The Anglican Bishop Trevor Williams,<\/strong> an Irish man, spoke about his experience as a pastor. For several years he has been having under his care the ecumenical community of Corrymeela, in Northern Ireland<\/strong>, who has contributed much towards the path of reconciliation between the different factions in conflict. \u201cReconciliation is not an option; it is a necessity if we want peace to last. We live in a world of \u201cthey\u201d and \u201cwe\u201d. But in truth there is only \u201cwe\u201d. Revealing this truth is work of reconciliation, work of the Holy Spirit\u201d. \"\" The German Evangelical-Lutheran pastor Jens-Martin Kruse<\/strong> shared his pastoral experience in Rome, an ecumenical laboratory that functions also thanks to Pope Francis. The Archbishop Antje Jackel\u00e9n, Primate of the Church of Sweden, Cardinal Anders Arborelius, <\/strong>the Catholic Bishop of Stockholm, and Bishop Munib Younan<\/strong>, former president of the Lutheran World Federation, who presided over the historical ecumenical liturgy in Lund together with Pope Francis in 2016,<\/strong> spoke about the journey of common reflection that continues after the 500 years commemoration of the Reformation. \u201cI assure you the Holy Spirit guided us and continues to guide us towards an ecumenical springtime. It is up to us now to reap the fruits of unity. Today we say: let us journey together as living witnesses in our fragmented world so that the world will believe.\u201d One of the highlights of this conference was the ecumenical prayer in the ancient Church of Sigtuna and the signing of the \u201cPact of Unity\u201d<\/strong>. With the signing of this Pact, the Bishops committed themselves to journey along the path of effective and affective communion, \u201cto love the Church of the other as one\u2019s own\u201d. This commitment was sealed with one\u2019s own signature and a fraternal embrace. Stefania Tanesini<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bishops conference held in Sigtuna (Sweden) came to its end yesterday. The Bishops present come from various Churches and are friends of the Focolare Movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}