Ecumenical encouragement

Posted Nov 10, 2015 in Faith

In August this year, members of the Uniting and Roman Catholic Churches in South Australia joined together for an ecumenical dinner. Sonia, one of the event attendees, reflects on the event.

An ecumenical “Dinner of Light” was held in the Port Pirie Lighthouse Uniting Church hall on Friday 14 August. This event, organised jointly by the Catholic parish of St Mark’s and Lighthouse Uniting Church, was an initial receptive ecumenism celebration promoted by the Uniting Church/Roman Catholic Dialogue of South Australia.

Eighty guests gathered at specially prepared tables replete with peace doves, lights of many colours, and olive branches.

It was an evening of sharing delicious food, conversation, music and prayer. The Florence singers and a combined Uniting Church/Catholic Tenor group provided the musical entertainment.

At the end of the evening, fridge magnets were given as a souvenir of the occasion and the peace doves were auctioned.

The proceeds of the evening will help support an ecumenical seminary in Baguio City in the Philippines.

The theme chosen was “I am the Light of the World”, reflecting the United Nations’ naming of 2015 as the International Year of Light.

Frank Miller, a Port Pirie Uniting Church parishioner who is visually impaired, spoke movingly of his personal faith journey in seeking the light.

Geraldine Hawkes, South Australian Council of Churches Ecumenical Facilitator, led the gathering graciously and imaginatively into a reflective experience of receptive ecumenism.

She shared a story describing how our interactions with one another tend to be tribal, territorial and trading. Receptive ecumenism, Geraldine said, has the capacity for institutional conversion – for moving people away from those tendencies for tribalism or territorialism, drawing them towards a new disposition regarding one another.

Many people recognise that there is a need for healing from within, as well as across our churches. As Geraldine explained to the gathering, receptive ecumenism helps people to recognise things within their own church that seem to diminish or obscure the light of Christ; it offers a way to seek the insights of another church, where the light of Christ is perhaps more fully manifest.

To illustrate her talk, Geraldine shared two images depicting the encounter between Jesus and the woman of Samaria as told in the Gospel according to John. Attendees at this event were invited to notice the way in which the encounter is depicted by the two artists, rather than focus on the story itself.

The event’s organising committee, comprising members of both denominations, plans to meet again at the beginning of 2016. Another Uniting Church/Roman Catholic dinner and a more broadly ecumenical event for the season of Pentecost are both being considered for the near future.

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