Pope Presides over ecumenical Vespers

January 26, 2013: Pope Benedict XVI presided over an ecumenical Vespers service on Friday evening in the Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls in Rome. The evening prayer concluded the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which focused on the topic: ‘What the Lord requires of us’. The representatives of other Churches and ecclesial communities present in Rome participated in the service. Among them were the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Personal Representative in Rome the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the members of the Mixed Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Speaking about this year’s theme for the week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Pope said: ‘It has been proposed by the Student Christian Movement in India, in collaboration with the All India Catholic University Federation and the National Council of Churches in India, who also prepared the aids for reflection and prayer.’
To those who have collaborated, the Pontiff added, I want to express my deep gratitude and with great affection, I assure you of my prayers for all Christians of India, who sometimes are called to bear witness to their faith in difficult conditions. "Walk humbly with God" means first walk in radical faith, like Abraham, trusting in God, or rather to discover in him all our hopes and aspirations. It also means walking past the barriers, as well as hate, racism and social discrimination and religious divide and harm society as a whole.
In his homily, the Pontiff spoke of the threats that contemporary societies are facing, and the challenges they pose to the cause of the Gospel. “In today's society,” he said, “it seems that the Christian message affect less and less personal and community life, and this is a challenge for all the Churches and Ecclesial Communities.” He went on to speak of unity as itself a privileged means and even almost a prerequisite for a more efficacious evangelization, both of those who have never heard the Good News, and of those who have lost touch with its healing and saving power.
Pope Benedict said, “The scandal of division that undermines missionary activity was the impulse under which began the ecumenical movement that we know today. The full and visible communion among Christians is to be understood, in fact, as a fundamental characteristic of ever clearer witness. While we are on the path towards full unity, it is necessary that all Christ’s disciples pursue practical cooperation for the sake of passing on the faith to the contemporary world. “Today,” the Pope said, “there is a great need for reconciliation, dialogue and mutual understanding,” for a stronger presence in the contemporary culture.Our search for unity in truth and in love, we must never lose sight of the perception that Christian unity is the work and gift of the Holy Spirit, and goes far beyond our own efforts. Citing the Second Vatican Council, the Pope said that "there is no true ecumenism without interior conversion".