Pray with the Pope: January 2017

by Chris Chatteris SJ · January 3, 2017

That we may be One

Intention: That all Christians may be faithful to the Lord’s teaching by striving with prayer and fraternal charity to restore ecclesial communion and by collaborating to meet the challenges facing humanity.

The Jesuit pope has made this Jesuit’s life a little more difficult in 2017, bless him! Until last year Francis used to publish two intentions per month well in advance, a universal intention and a missionary one. The former was focused on the needs of society and the latter on the Church.

This year, he tells us who write reflections on his prayer intentions, he is going to publish only the missionary intention in advance.

He will release the intention focused on the needs of society — taking the place of the general intentions — monthly in response to situations which arise in the world. But because these are likely to come out after the deadlines by which the editor needs this column to be filed, it may not be possible for me to comment on them in time, and so I may not always be able to cover both intentions. What I will try to do, therefore, is to comment at a little more length on the monthly missionary intention.

For this first month of 2017, it is that members of the Christian community might work to restore Christian unity and thereby face the challenges facing humanity.

That sounds familiar — old hat even — but there is an interesting underlying assumption worth exploring: that what we do as members of Christ’s body has an effect on the wider world.

Christian unity is good for unity in general. This should not surprise us. The Lord prayed that we should be one so that the world should see it and believe that the Father sent him. “See how these Christians love one another”, should be what people say of us, and when they do say that, we hope that they will be inspired to do likewise. Christian unity is good for unity in general. This should not surprise us.

In other words the state of the Church makes a difference for people both inside and outside the Church. It makes a difference for the state of humankind. And this is very important to remember at a time when for many people the influence of the faith is regarded at best as irrelevant and passé, and at worst an obstacle to human progress.

It is also important at a time when some of the more extreme proponents of secularism are pushing to exclude the voice of the Church from the global conversation of humanity. For them the exchange of ideas is regarded as a good thing — except in the case of people of faith.

Hence our contributions to the debate about how our world can find peace, shared development and sustainable progress can end up being studiously ignored or sidelined. We have to regain the attention of people with this mentality — and how we love one another, or not, will always be crucial. When he asks us to do something, he leads by personal example and personal involvement

Pope Francis himself does a good job of showing us how we can speak with the authority which commands respect.

When he asks us to do something, he leads by personal example and personal involvement. He doesn’t just talk about refugees; he goes out to meet them personally. He doesn’t just express nice sentiments about Christian unity; he prays with and humbly seeks the blessing of the leaders of other churches and asks forgiveness for the damage done to Christian unity by Catholics in the past.

All this is noticed, by believers whose own religions experience internal tensions and even by unbelievers seeking unity around a vision of a shared humanity. (Here is an interesting article which illustrates the point: www.bit.ly/2hsqJpy)

Our unity makes a difference for the unity of humankind. Let us pray for it at the beginning of this New Year.