This week’s service has been prepared by the brothers and sisters of the Community in Nantes.
Reflection text
Christ, the sole foundation of the Church. The exclusivity and inclusivity of Christ.
Excerpt from Gérard Siegwalt’s text published in Revue Irénikon 78 (2005) 1-2, pp. 7-8.
[…] The theme: ‘Christ, the sole foundation of the Church’ affirms, along with the uniqueness of Christ, the unity of the Church: one Christ, one Church of this one Christ!
Let us consider Ephesians 4:3ff: “Strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit… there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.‘
Let us also think of the Nicene Creed: ’I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” Since the early days of Christianity, the affirmation of faith concerning the unity of the Church has been combined with a plurality of Churches: the New Testament uses both the singular ‘Church’ and the plural ‘Churches’.
The one Church of Christ is diversified into particular churches, according to the particular places where it is established. These places are not only geographical (Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Rome, etc.) but also theological: there are the so-called Petrine Churches (or Palestinian Churches, with Jerusalem at their origin), the Pauline Churches (and here there are the early Pauline Churches and the later Pauline Churches of the pastoral epistles), and the Johannine Churches. We know that the coexistence of these different Christian branches was not without tension and even conflict: consider the dispute between Paul on one side and Peter and James on the other. […].
The one Church of Christ has never been a uniform Church; it has always been a plural Church. This is also the affirmation of 1 Corinthians 12, which applies first and foremost to a given ecclesial community: ‘there are different kinds of gifts (charisms), but the same Spirit’; this affirmation can also be applied to the diversity of Churches. In other words: there is no living unity, according to truth and love, without diversity; there is no living diversity, according to truth and love, without unity.
Intercessions
To be adapted or modified according to the place and circumstance
Lord, we give you thanks for the student residence in Nantes entrusted to the Chemin Neuf Community, with young people from different cultures, denominations and religions. With them, we also entrust to you all the young people welcomed into our homes throughout the world. The richness of this diversity opens us up to the greatness and love you have for each one of us.
Come, Holy Spirit, continue to reveal yourself in our life together and give us the grace of unity in all our diversity.
God of peace and communion, we entrust to You the Churches of the East and the Middle East, brought to birth at the very sources of the Gospel and tested by the wounds of time.
We bring before You the religious, the families, and all Christians whose faith may be weakened by fear, exile, violence, and oblivion.
Come, Holy Spirit, give these communities the patience to endure the night; and the hope that does not disappoint. May they be a humble and luminous sign of perseverance, reconciliation and peace for the world.
God of love, we give you thanks for the Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches throughout the world. We entrust to you the pastors, bishops and all those in leadership positions in these Churches.
Come, Holy Spirit, protect and nourish their faithfulness to your Word. Grant these Churches the grace of unity so that the passion to proclaim your Kingdom may spread widely throughout the world.
Prayer for Christian unity
Lord Jesus, who prayed that we might all be one,
we pray to you for the unity of Christians,
according to your will,
according to your means.
May your Spirit enable us
to experience the suffering caused by division,
to see our sin
and to hope beyond all hope.
Amen.
(Prayer written by members of the Chemin Neuf Community
inspired by a prayer of Father Paul Couturier)