 |
A door which opens on unity
Guido Bossa
For the opening of the greatest of the holy doors of the Great Jubilee, the one of Saint Paul outside the walls which Pope John Paul II crossed with 22 representatives of other Churches and Christian communities, the Vatican liturgists who prepared the rite in an ecumenical spirit with their brothers of other Christian denominations, had to recur to the most sophisticated evocative fantasy, to give body and visibility to a fact unique in history: unity that is manifested in persisting division, unity which, for once, overcomes divisions. The holy door of the Basilica of Saint Paul, the oldest among all those of the Patriarchal basilicas, merged with Constantinople at the beginning of the second millennium, when the schism of the West was still fresh, was thus a mute testimony of the sign of hope with which the third Christian millennium is opening up: an invitation, as Monsignor Pietro Marini, Master of the Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies, declared, Âto all believers in Christ to increase the common availability to the Spirit which calls to conversion, to carry out new courageous gestures, to feel the need to go beyond the degree of communion that has been reachedÂ. A greater holy door than the others because it was crossed by Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, Christians of many different denominations. The rite saw a true and proper Concelebration of the Word, with the Pope as protagonist along with 22 representatives from Churches and Christian communities in addition to delegates of the Ecumenical Council of Churches, who intervened various times during the important phases of the ceremony. In short, something that had never been seen in history, not even during the Second Vatican Council, as was noted: unity that materialises around the Gospel and the common commitment of evangelization. The Pope who opens the holy door pushing its wings with Metropolitan Athanasios and Anglican bishops Carey; the Pope who blesses the faithful with the book of the Gospels and then passes it to the Copt-Orthodox Metropolitan Amba Bishoi, from hand to hand, to the Russian Orthodox Archbishop Klin and to the Lutheran bishop Krause; the book of the Gospels lifted in the direction of the four cardinal points to underline the common commitment for preaching and evangelization; and then many other unmistakeable signs of tension towards unity, the last of which, the cry ÂUnity, unity repeated by Pope John Paul II in various languages, which resounded both as a wish and an imperative for all. The reading of the verses by Russian Orthodox priest Georges Florovsky and by Evangelical theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer indicated the common will to listen to traditions, to the theology and spirituality of all the Churches and Communities. And in a clear sunny day, the faithful who crowded the portico of the Basilica understood the sense of the important message launched by the Heads of the Churches on the very day on which the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was beginning. The peculiar ecumenical character of the Great Jubilee and the whole pastoral activity of the Church after the Council, could therefore not find a better place to be underscored than in the Basilica dedicated to the Apostle of the gentiles, where Pope John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council. |
