493. January 18, Octave of Christian Unity - 1

Meditations no. 423 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The prayer of Christ for the unity of the Church during the Last Supper.

The octave of Christian unity begins today: they are days of special petition to the Holy Trinity, in which we ask for the fulfilment of the words of our Lord at the Last Supper: Holy Father, keep in your name those you have given me, so that all be one as we are one. Urged on by the spirit of the Work, we are getting ready to live the octave in a unity of desires with the Church, full of supernatural hope, because we know that it has to be the Holy Spirit who moves the hearts of all those who believe in Christ and who will bring about the perfect unity of all Christians in the one Church.

Our prayer follows the path marked out by the priestly prayer of Jesus Christ, on the evening of his Passion. When the time had come for him to pass from this world to the Father, our Lord prays for a holy and compact Church with a unity which points up its beauty, for the supreme and. highest principle of this mystery is, in the Trinity of Persons, the Unity of only one God the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit.

Like the Good Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep, Jesus Christ prays for the unity of his flock. For years he has guided his disciples, he has looked after them one by one; but he knows that the enemy is constantly trying to snatch the sheep and scatter the flock, and his Heart suffers, knowing that many will waver and abandon the sheep-fold.

The prayer of Christ also extends to those who have never been counted amongst his followers, those who never even knew about his flock: I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold, and I also have to bring them, and they will hear my voice and will form only one flock with one shepherd.

With this octave, the Church wants us to take one more step in the identification of our sentiments with those of Jesus. Being well aware of the vicissitudes of the Church throughout history, and conscious of the debility of the human heart, so easily swayed by error and discord, our prayer has to take on new energy, uniting itself to that of the Good Shepherd: as you, Father, in me and I in You, that they be united in us… , that they be one as we are one. I in them and You in me, so that they be united as one, and so that the world might know you have sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me.

True ecumenism moves us to be intransigent in doctrine and transigent with people.

Catholic doctrine is not a construct of the human intelligence: we have received it from the Church, which faithfully transmits the truths that Jesus Christ gave to the Apostles. Therefore, if we want to be faithful to our Lord, we have to conserve its teachings, try to know them better, to live them and transmit them integrally to the rest of mankind.

Guard the deposit which I have given to you, wrote St Paul to Timothy. And St Vincent of Lerins comments: What is the deposit? It is what you have believed and not what you have discovered; what you have received and not what you have thought up; something which comes not from personal ingeniousness, but from doctrine; not the fruits of theft, but fruit of public tradition. It is something that has come down to you, which has not been invented by you; something of which you are not the author, but the guardian; not the creator but the curator; not the conductor but the conducted.

Guard the deposit: conserve clean and inviolate the talent of the Catholic faith. May what you have believed remain in you, and give the same to the others. It is gold you have received, give back gold; don’t substitute one thing for another, don’t replace the gold with lead, don’t mix it fraudulently with anything. I am not interested in the appearance of gold but in the pure gold itself.

As the Second Vatican Council has reminded us, speaking of genuine ecumenism, the manner and the system of explaining the Catholic faith ought not be converted in any way into an obstacle for a dialogue with our brothers. It is vitally necessary that the doctrine be clearly expounded. Nothing is so foreign to ecumenism as false irenicism, that only damages the purity of Catholic doctrine and obscures its genuine and definitive meaning.

What belongs to the deposit of Revelation, our founder wrote in 1933, that which -trusting in God who cannot deceive nor be deceived - we know to be Catholic truth, cannot be an object of compromises, simply because it is the truth, and the truth does not come by halves.

Have you ever thought about what would happen if, on the basis of wanting to be ‘transigent’, all the changes, that we men might ask for, were made to our holy Catholic faith? Perhaps we would arrive at something in which we were all in agreement, at a type of religion which was characterised by a vague inclination of the heart, by a sterile sentimentalism, that almost certainly - with a little bit of good will - could be found in any search for the supernatural; but this doctrine would not be the doctrine of Christ, it would not be a treasure of divine truths, but something human, that would neither save nor redeem; salt which had become insipid.

To just such a catastrophe would this madness of ceding in principles lead, this desire to diminish doctrinal differences, these concessions in what belongs to the untouchable deposit that Jesus has given to his Church. The truth is one, my children, and while in human things it might be difficult to know where that certainty is, in the things of the faith there is not the same problem.

This holy intransigence in what belongs to the deposit of the faith, ought to be always accompanied by transigence which is equally holy, with people who do not possess the plenitude of the Catholic truth. This is what our founder has taught us with his word and with his example: we defend with charity the freedom of consciences, we show, and we are, loyal friends who know how to receive all souls with cordiality, especially when they need us. But we cannot make compromises in the faith.

The fruit of this way of acting.

Error not only obscures the intelligences of people, it also divides wills. Only when men get accustomed to saying and hearing the truth, will there be understanding and concord. And this is what we are aiming at: to work for the supernatural Truth of the faith, at the same time as we make use loyally of all the partial human truths; to fill with charity and light all the ways of the earth: with constancy, competently, without faint-heartedness or omissions.

Love for God leads us to want to satisfy the aspirations to happiness and truth that the Creator has left imprinted on all souls. As the circumstances in which each people find themselves are different, and each situation is distinct, the grade of truth that each one has arrived at also varies. Therefore the means that we will use to bring them all to the one Faith, one Hope and one Love, will also be different.

We ought to apply the most suitable remedies, both supernatural and human, despite the difficulties that can present themselves in this sphere of action, because this effort contributes -as the Magisterium of the Church teaches -to the good of justice and the truth, of concord and collaboration, of a spirit of brotherhood and of union; so that tittle by little, once the obstacles in the way of perfect ecclesial communion have been overcome, all Christians congregate in the one celebration of the Eucharist, in the unity of the one Church.

We have to try and build bridges, of respect and affection, with all those who are not Catholics. If they ask us about our faith, our Father used to explain, we will tell them the truth: I don’t want to offend you, but I would be deceiving you if I did not tell you that I have the true faith and you are mistaken. I respect you, I will not attack you because of this, we will keep being friends, but I am the one who has the true faith…

You will never offend them. We can say all this without the need to offend anybody. To compromise in areas of the faith, ceding in doctrine even though it were only in small things, would be deceit and a lack of nobility with those who, moved by genuine desires for unity, want to know the doctrine of the Church. This attitude of false charity is not being loyal with souls. To carry on this way is not to dialogue with people, it is a betrayal. As well, and apart from the fact that we cannot do evil so that a good may come of it, it is not even a useful tactic: when a Christian habitually gives way in matters of faith, it is a symptom that he is not fully a Christian; and people will not trust him because he who has betrayed once will easily do it again.

Let us finish the prayer making that piece of advice of our Father our own: offer up your prayer, expiation and action for this goal: ut omnes unum sint! - so that all of us Christians have one and the same will, the same heart and the same spirit: so that omnes cum Petro ad Iesum per Mariam! - all, very united to the Pope, go to Jesus through Mary.