{"id":327750,"date":"2015-11-18T08:30:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T07:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/the-time-for-reconciled-diversity\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:02:02","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:02:02","slug":"the-time-for-reconciled-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/the-time-for-reconciled-diversity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Time For Reconciled Diversity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20151118-01\"<\/a>Home of Lutherans in Rome, <\/strong>the Christ Church welcomed Pope Francis on Sunday, November 15. Before Francis, John Paul II was the first Pontiff to enter a Lutheran Church and, in 2010, Benedict XVI was the second. \u201cOur 500-member community is relatively small, <\/strong>all of us on the front lines in the field of ecumenism. We are active as a parish at various levels in the cit, but also in our own family, with colleagues at work, with neighbours or, like me someone who has lived in a Focolare community<\/a> for more than thirty years,\u201d says Heike Vesper.<\/strong> She was there on Sunday along with Catholic women focolarini who often accompany her to the Sunday liturgy. Heike called the Bishop of Rome an \u201cevangelical Pope\u201d, a<\/strong> pastor <\/strong>who focused his remarks that day on our common witness to Jesus Christ, \u201cboth in Lutheran expressions and in Roman Catholic expressions\u201d on the importance of life and not so much interpretation. He spoke from his heart as he confided to us what he likes: to visit the sick and the incarcerated. The meeting and the prayer service with the Pope was new in its kind, you could say that it was a lesson on what should be of importance among Christians of different Churches: dialogue and deep listening, mutual trust, sincere and truthful answers, common prayer and listening to the Gospel.\u201d Jens-Martin Kruse, Pastor of the Evanglical Lutheran Church, <\/strong>gave a warm welcome while remembering the victims of the Paris attacks: \u201cLet us trust that Jesus has conquered the world and therefore not allow ourselves to be conditioned by fear.\u201d \u201cMy brother Pastor mentioned the tragic events in Paris,\u201d the Pope remarked. “Even God\u2019s name is being used to close hearts.\u201d \"20151118-03\"<\/a>\u201cPope Francis\u2019s freedom and sincerity was very touching,\u201d <\/strong>writes Heike. \u201cHe gave his answers from the perspective of a fellow pilgrim on the same road as the listeners. He stressed the importance of following one\u2019s conscience, of living for the neighbour; and that with faith, that is with love, all the walls will crumble.\u201d The fraternal tone of the dialogue created a family atmosphere that was \u201cmore and more deep and encouraging.\u201d <\/strong>Three questions were posed to Pope Francis: What does it mean to be Pope? What is the duty of Christians towards the needy? What must be done so that we can celebrate the Eucharist together, the Lord\u2019s Supper, when husband and wife belong to different Churches? \u201cThose who find themselves in this situation,\u201d Heike explained, \u201csuffer from the division even more. It was not easy for the Pope to answer, in fact, in spite of the steps that have already been taken, theological questions remain open concerning the Magisterium, the vision of the Church, that are still an impediment to a common celebration. The Pope mentions a few possible paths for sharing the Lord\u2019s Supper. He referred to the Gospel, to Saint Paul: \u201cThere is one Lord, one faith, one baptism\u201d (Eph 4:5). He invited everyone to listen to his or her own conscience, to give more importance to life, to the common journey \u2013 more than to the different interpretations. His words instilled hope and peace. Even the gift he brought had a prophetic dimension: a chalice and paten for the celebration of the Eucharist.\u201d The Gospel of the day was the Final Judgement (Mt 23) that reminds us that we will be judged on our love for the poor and needy. The Pope brought to the attention of those who say \u201cour books say one thing and yours say another,\u201d the words of a Lutheran idea: \u201cThere\u2019s the hour of reconciled diversity.\u201d <\/strong>And he concluded saying: \u201cToday we ask the grace of this diversity reconciled in the Lord, the reconciliation of that God who came amongst us to serve and not to be served.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Third Pope to be welcomed to the Christuskirche (Christ Church), Pope Francis visits the Lutheran community of Rome against the backdrop of Paris. Dialogue and ecumenical openness.<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327750","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=327750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}