Plenary, 16 Jan 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Official Report 453KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection, and our time for reflection leader today is Canon Andrew Mann from St Columba's Catholic church in Banchory.

I have noticed that various anniversaries take place this year. For example, it is the centenary of the birth of Jimmy Shand on 28 January, the quincentennial of the printing of the first book in Scotland on 4 April, and the 125th anniversary of the Melrose rugby sevens on 12 April.

One anniversary, known only to the cognoscenti, may have slipped from view. On Friday we begin the week of prayer for Christian unity, which I hope will be marked in cities, towns and villages up and down the country. The seeds of that ecumenical endeavour were sown in the 19th century and bore fruit in 1908, when Paul Wattson, an American Episcopalian priest, proposed an octave of prayer from 18 to 25 January, between the feasts of the chair of St Peter and of the conversion of St Paul. By the middle of the 20th century, the observance of the octave had spread throughout the church.

October 28 this year marks the 50th anniversary of the election of Angelo Roncalli as Pope John XXIII. It can be no coincidence that it was on 25 January 1959, at the end of the unity octave, that he announced his intention of calling the second Vatican council, a key milestone in the Roman Catholic Church's journey of faith. The council positively encouraged Romans Catholics to meet and pray together with other Christians.

At Bellahouston park in 1982, Pope John Paul II called on all Christians to make

"our pilgrimage together hand-in-hand … doing all we can ‘to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds us together'."

I can recall the enthusiasm of the 1980s, when Lenten faith-sharing groups were all the rage. Now that the initial zeal has settled down into a familiar pattern, some Christians have become slightly weary of the whole process. Perhaps this year we need to recapture some of that passion, commitment and dedication. Perhaps we need to support more enthusiastically the work of Action of Churches Together in Scotland. Since 1990, it has brought together nine denominations in our country to act together in proclaiming and responding to the gospel.

A journalist once asked Pope John,

"How many people work in the Vatican?"

His reply was characteristic: "No more than half". Surely this anniversary reminds us that all Christians need to work and pray together if we are to fulfil the desire of Jesus that

"we may all be one".