Reorienting ourselves – From Conflict to Communion

Writen by sadataley 8:24 AM - 0 Comments

From left: Ricardo Cardinal Blázquez, President of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, LWF General Secretary Rev. Dr Martin Junge, Bishop Dr Brian Farrell, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and Rev. Pedro Zamora, pastor of the Spanish Evangelical Church. Photo: Pontifical University of Salamanca

LWF General Secretary Martin Junge maps out next steps in the

 Lutheran-Catholic dialogue

LWI) - Outcomes of the international Lutheran-Catholic dialogue over 

the past 50 years have been an “opportunity to rethink” prevailing 

narratives from a perspective of unity rather than highlighting 

differences.

The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) General Secretary Rev. Dr Martin 

Junge made these remarks at the Pontifical University of

 Salamanca, Spain, when he gave a lecture on 

“Reorienting ourselves – From Conflict to Communion” at the Congress 

of Ecumenical Theology, hosted by the university, 8 - 10 June.

The congress concluded in a common prayer service jointly led by the

 LWF general secretary and Bishop Dr Brian Farrell, Secretary of the

 Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU).  

The service was structured around the Common Prayer accompanying 

the Catholic-Lutheran “From Conflict to Communion” process. 

The preachers included Ricardo Cardinal Blázquez, President of

 the Spanish Episcopal Conference, and Rev. Pedro Zamora, pastor of

 the Spanish Evangelical Church.

Presenting his lecture, Junge noted that  Lutheran-Catholic 
relations  had reached a “time of transition” and pointed out  
areas of further engagement in the coming years. He said 
the Joint Catholic-Lutheran Commemoration of the Reformation in 
Lund and Malmö, Sweden, in October 2016, was oneof the major 
milestones.

The commemoration in Lund has raised a lively interest in common 

liturgies both in the Lutheran as well as the Catholic churches. 

“This eagerness to facilitate a reception of this international 

dialogue is very encouraging,” Junge said. “The common liturgies 

install a new element in the Lutheran and Catholic collective 

awareness  and thus help the people of God to become aware of 

new realities, new ways of seeing each other.”

The liturgy had been jointly developed to mark the 500th Anniversary

 of the Reformation. He concluded his lecture by saying that 

“there are no traced paths for the coming processes; this also

 means that it will be necessary to leave behind the paths we
 have traced and have become accustomed to.”

The Lund principle: “not doing separately what can be done together”

Junge said the mutual commitment by the LWF and the Catholic Church

 during the joint commemoration lifted up and actualized the 

“Lund principle” of “not doing separately what can be done together.

” He said the Declaration of Intent signed by Caritas Internationalis

 and the LWF during the Reformation commemoration in Malmö pointed 

toward renewed commitment to “give a more fervent testimony of faith 

in the Triune God in the field of diakonia.” Joint efforts and 

ecumenical commitment also implied increased participation of our 

respective communions in the mission of God, contributing to 

a public presence of the church and being “a direct contribution

 to the building of peace” in a fragmented world."For the people of
 God the unity of the church is manifested in its most direct and
 tangible form in the possibility of accepting the Lord's call at 
his table— LWF General Secretary Rev. Dr Martin Junge

Church, ministry and the Eucharist three main theological topics
Church, ministry and the Eucharist are the three main theological 
topics Junge identified for more “study, discernment and dialogue” 

in the coming years. He said the Joint Statement signed by 

Pope Francis and then LWF President Bishop Dr Munib A. Younan 

during the commemoration in Lund urges Catholics and Lutherans to 

“explore pastoral responses” regarding the separation of 

interdenominational  couples during Eucharist.

Junge stated  his conviction  that “by intertwining a 

theological-dogmatic debate with the prevailing pastoral 

realities for many communities and parishes it will be possible to 

redefine the theological questions that guide this discernment.

” Contextual realities will “dictate the need to address this 

challenge, and will inspire innovative, theologically sustained, 

and appropriate approaches to situations requiring a pastoral 

response.”

He emphasized that “for the people of God the unity of the church 

is manifested in its most direct and tangible form in the possibility

 of accepting the Lord's call at his table. With this, the shared 

Eucharist does not appear as the final point, as the ultimate 

consequence in the processes of unity, but as an incentive to 

reach it and receive it as a gift of God.”

Amongst encouraging steps already taken, Junge named the Declaration 

on the Way presented by the United States Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue 

Commission, the explorations by the Committee for Ecumenical Studies

 of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD) and 

the Swedish-Finnish study exploring the practical implications for

 unity arising from the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of 

Justification.

Ecumenical accountability during upcoming anniversaries

2017 marks the first of a series of anniversaries pertaining to the

 Reformation. These require significant “ecumenical accountability,

” said  Junge,which the LWF is committed to. He referred to 

the 500th anniversary of the Diet of Worms in 2021, as one of the 

events requiring this ecumenical sensitivity. He also mentioned 

the 500th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession coming up in 2030. 

This anniversary of the central confessional document of Lutheran

churches provides huge ecumenical opportunities, also in view of 

deepening the Catholic-Lutheran relations.

The LWF general secretary urged his audience to remain steadfast and 

be courageous in their ecumenical processes, underlining that there

 are no set timelines for a journey from conflict to communion, nor

 for unity. He called for confidence and hope, recalling  that even

 what is not in our calendars and diaries, is already in God’s 

calendar. “The Joint Commemoration in 2016 is the latest evidence

 of this fact,” Junge added.

Source: www.lutheranworld.org 

• Facebook
• Tweeter
• Google+
• Pinterest