Participants in last year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity pray around the Taize cross at the Newman Center. (HCH file photo)
“Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.”
Don’t worry, even old-time religion Catholics needn’t fret about being tested on the translation from the Latin. Here it is: “Where charity and love are, God is there.”
The challenge isn’t in translating correctly. The test isn’t even about understanding the concept. It’s been said, so many times, many ways.
In the greatest commandment: Love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
In the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Down through so many centuries, what gazillions of us have failed to do with that most basic idea from the most loving rule giver is to practice it.
The Ubi Caritas prayer continues:
“Christ’s love has gathered us into one. Let us rejoice and be pleased in him.”
Next week, once again, crowds of earnest Christians will focus on practicing what Jesus preached. With good intentions they will gather in locations around the globe to mark The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The World Council of Churches and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity created the observance more than 100 years ago. An international group prepares text material in many languages to help grassroots folks focus prayers and dialogue on celebrating what they have in common and seeking unity. Okay, enough of the boilerplate press release material. As if local preachers of any denomination need help putting words in their mouths!
The international planners do set the theme from a Biblical story each year. This time, it is from John’s Gospel, the story of the Lord’s encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well, where he requested water, and then told her about the living water of God’s love that gives eternal life. She got the message bigtime and dashed off to share it with everyone in her village.
The Taize model
In the past, different denominations have taken turns hosting the annual Oahu gathering, at Kawaiahao Church, St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Our Lady of Peace Cathedral, the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. Last year, for a change of pace, Bishop Larry Silva invited the ecumenical crowd to the Newman Center at University of Hawaii. He was inspired by the Taize service used on Good Friday there and also offered occasionally around town at other Protestant and Catholic churches. Based on a format from the mixed Catholic and Protestant Taize monastery in France, it involves congregational participation in sung chants and meditative prayer beside a large cross.
The crowd sings: “May we each love each other with a sincere heart. As we are gathered into one body, beware lest we be divided in mind.”
The service was such a hit that local planners called “hana hou” for a repeat this year. The Rev. Sam Domingo, pastor of Kilohana United Methodist Church, said, “The concept is to connect with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.
“We saw how young people related, felt the wonderful spirit; it was wonderful for everyone to participate instead of being preached at.” Domingo said that the typical protocol was “top heavy with top people” with leaders, bishops, administrators, conference heads of churches taking turns at the pulpit.
“Taize is good, we get outside our own worship pattern,” said the Rev. Charles Buck, Hawaii conference minister of the United Church of Christ. “People loved it so much we decided to do it again.”
Buck said the annual observance “embodies what unity could be. In prayer intercessions, we lift up people and issues around the world. You know others around the world are doing the same. It brings us together.” He said the timing is “meaningful, coming at the start of a new year, between Advent and Lent.” He and Domingo are with the Hawaii Council of Churches board that will underwrite the reception to follow the 7:30 p.m. service on Jan. 22.
‘All flavors of Christian faith’
The Rev. Dan Chun, senior pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, said the Taize tradition “has brought people from all flavors of Christian faith together, the songs are the epitome of unity. My lifelong dream is that Christians can get together in understanding.” He practices what he preaches. The minister and his wife Pam founded Hawaiian Islands Ministries which brings dozens of famous and not so famous speakers and authors to Honolulu for an annual conglomeration of talks and workshops. It’s the 34th year for the event which will be March 19, 20, 21 at the Hawaii Convention Center. Father Philip Chircop, a Jesuit priest, author and retreat leader from Malta, is one of dozens of speakers whose information and schedules are on himonline.org.
The Samaritan woman is “a metaphor for our differences,” said Orthodox Christian Bishop Randolph Sykes. Gospel accounts, such as the familiar Good Samaritan story, underscore that they were a sect separated by differences in belief from the Jews of Jesus’ time, yet Jesus used them as a message of inclusiveness and faith.
“What it says to me is that we are continuing on the road together. We need to educate ourselves about our own spirituality and we need to develop an understanding of what is important to others,” said the bishop. “Our core principles are the same, we have the same message, but there are differences in vocabulary, approach and in each (branch of Christianity) doctrinal, moral, some cultural overlays.”
“Beware lest we be divided in mind. Let evil impulses stop, let controversy cease,” the Ubi Caritas prayer continues.
Just contemplating the differences that exist between the people who will be sitting side by side at Newman Center next week made me think of a recent conversation with another member of an Orthodox church in Honolulu in which he rattled off a series of dates: 325, 1053, 1517. I had to search the rusty memory bank from History of Christianity 101 to recognize them as dates of some of the great Schisms. But he had at the tip of his tongue, those ancient warps on the timeline of our faith.
Readers, go ahead and look them up if you want; they are so not the point here.
Sykes, president of the Interfaith Alliance of Hawaii, has attended the Good Friday Taize service at Newman Center and had an experience he shares. His black Orthodox vestments singled him out. A small boy tapped his arm and asked what his religion he is. Sykes said, “He told me I didn’t belong there, it was just for Catholics.” May that kid’s parents please bring him back next week for a new perspective on the crowd of Christians.
Retired Chaminade University English professor Jon James, a key planner of the event, offered the wisdom from one of the annual retreats he makes at the French monastery. “The key to unity is ‘memory forgiveness.’ We don’t relive the history of Christianity and focus on differences that separated us. We all need both a vertical perspective, our connection with God, and a horizontal perspective, our connection with others.”
Let us sing to the end of the song: “May Christ Our God be in our midst. And may we, with the saints, also see Thy face in glory, O Christ Our Lord. Unto the ages, through infinite ages. Amen.”
