The Unity of the Church to the service of the world

Italo Benedetti

Blessed is God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the celestial places through Christ. Amen. Nothing can be added to these words; the express all that is essential: that is the praise to God for all that he did for us. If a preacher wanted to be faithful to this biblical text, he would have to let his teaching end here, because the final meaning of this hymn is precisely that faced with this great revelation of the saving plan of God for the world, men and history, and believers are left with only praise and blessing of God...Who gives us the certainty of this hope? The apostle seems to answer us, saying that the certainty of our hope is the answer to the eternal decisions of God, which were revealed by Christ. Here we must reveal two things. The first is that the apostle affirms that everything comes “in heaven.” That which seems to render this idea clear from the numerous annotations, repetitions and emphasis that surround our hymn: “first from the creation of the world,” “he made those decisions because it is what he wanted,” “the secret project of his will: that which from the beginning he had generously decided to carry out,” “in this way God leads history to its evolution,” “God even chose us from the beginning.” That which is being discussed is something more than this world, something more than men and women, something more than history, it is something that happens “in the heavens,” that means it happens because of the sovereign will of God. In truth, therefore, the apostle goes beyond the admiration of his own grandiosity, not really because of the single reasons for which he renders blessing to the Lord, but mostly in front of all of these things together; that is in front of the saving plan that has become clear before his eyes, to the “secret project of his will,” as he calls it. It is as though the apostle suddenly became the clear and logical thread of all the revelations that God revealed throughout history since the creation up to the final chapter and recognized the story of salvation. All the world, all the people and all of history are included in his plan of salvation. God works by eternity and in eternity, in a way to make all things conform to his perfect plan. Past, present, and future are all included in this praise, just as the work of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are included in it. The second thing that we must reveal is that the apostle affirms that everything happens “through Christ” (four times it is repeated during this hymn “in him,” almost giving the verses a rhythm). Everything happens “in heaven,” everything happens “through Christ”... What is the aim of God’s plan revealed through Christ? The apostle explicitly affirms, in truth, that praise is all that remains to man in front of the mystery of the plan of salvation that Christ revealed. In particular, our text ends, saying that our future heredity is the “full liberation that God will give us so that we can give praise to his grandness.” The aim of God’s grand plan, therefore, is precisely liberation and praise. And here we would like to make two considerations on the meaning of ecumenism in light of this text. The first deals with the meaning of ecumenism, beginning with the promise of liberation. We have seen that the plan of God is essential a plan of liberation, whose central point is the cross of Christ. The affirmation – which is the content of the Christian gospel, the content of the Good News that we announce – that our salvation is based on the work of God through Christ, makes us avoid running behind our own salvation and carrying our sins around our necks. Christ won our religious anxieties, buying for us salvation and giving it back to us for free. Christ liberates us from our anxieties to give us back our lives. Christ liberates us also from our identity crises, so that we cannot conceive our faith only according to the confessional labels: Protestant! Catholic! Orthodox! So that lighting a candle in Church is too Catholic for a Protestant or reading the Bible is too Protestant for a Catholic. To elaborate; the attention given to our confessional identity makes us introverts, and focuses us on ourselves instead of towards the world. Christ liberates us from the anxieties of our identity to open us up to the world. In this way the search for unity in the Church cannot end in itself, either it is altogether for the world or it is useless. This (if I can be allowed to explain) is the reason for the absence of Italian Protestants at the opening of the Holy Doors – which was emphasized with surprise by the networks – we believe that that is an introverted kind of ecumenism, that keeps us busy discussing it, and possibly dividing us, on the role of a ministry of unity. The second consideration deals with the meaning behind ecumenical celebrations and in particular in the week of prayer for Christian unity that begins with the vocation of praise. We are here believers, belonging to different churches, Christians with different identities, together to praise and to bless God. Why? What moves us? What is the reason for it? This meaning comes, first of all, from a common experience. All of us who are here, apart from our own interpretations, have experienced the work of Christ in our favor. In fact, the very reason that each thing was made by Christ forces us to recognize that this work was made also for the brothers and sisters of other confessions. The experience of faith is a common experience.