THE LORD JESUS' COMING IN THE SPIRIT OF ADVENT ECUMENISM.........

Having concelebrated the 3rd Sunday of Advent Vigil Mass with Fr. Moynihan, at St. Ignatius Church Saturday evening, I was free yesterday to fulfill one of my more than decade and a half personal traditions for Advent/Christmas and the other liturgical high seasons of the Church Year. I attended the Sunday Worship Service at another Christian Church, in this case, St. Mark's First United Methodist Church in the Arden Country Club Centre neighborhood near Presentation Parish Church. Starting at ThanksGiving Eve 1992, when I attended the Woodland Christian Churches Ecumenical Celebration with my Holy Rosary Parish Pastor, the late, Reverend Father Cornelius O'Donnell, I have done my best to honor the Second Vatican Council's 1964, "Decree on Ecumenism", by being present and participating with other demnominational Christian Pastors and their congregations in their churches on various occasions during the year. ThanksGiving Eve Services, Advent and Christmas Sunday Liturgies, Christian Unity Week Celebrations,and on Sundays of Lent and Easter, I take the opportunity to attend one or more other than Catholic, mainline Christian churches, who share with us a common belief in Baptism, the Resurrection, and the major Christian Creeds of the Church. I have been warmly welcomed and invited to share ecumenically on many of those occasions in the worship services of these other Christian faith communities. The Reverend Faith Whitmore, is the current Senior Pastor of St. Mark's First United Methodist Church and was the presider and preacher at yesterday's Sunday Service. The title of her homily/sermon was, "The Politics of Advent". The politics she preached on were the political relationships and ramifications of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod Antipas, Caiaphas and Annas, in regards to Jesus the Christ. The Music Ministry at the worship service was a a combination of the Church Choir and a young adult Band, comprised of piano, guitars, horns, drums, and tambourine. There was also a Children's sharing of The Word, focused on Readiness for Jesus and Christmas; followed by their dismissal for Children's Church. As I exited the church at the end of Sunday Worship, I had a delightful, brief, conversation with Reverend Whitmore. Over the past seventeen years I have productively interacted with the Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Free Methodists, Orthodox, and Community, Church congregations in Woodland, Yreka, Oroville, Citrus Heights, South Sacramento, and Arden Arcade. These interactions have affirmed me in my Catholic-Christian faith and vocation, and given me a profound sense of the indispensability of Unity amidst our diversity of demnomination. Strikingly, I have had the closest of relations with the Methodist pastors and their congregations. From Rev. David Samuelson, in Yreka, Revs. Kim Leslie and Linda Prendergast, in Oroville, and Rev. Faith Whitmore in Arden Arcade, they have been a true joy to know and minister with. The Rev. Lloyd Hanson, a retired Sacramento Lutheran Pastor, who has been serving as the Interim Pastor of the First English Lutheran Church, for several years now, in South Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood, even invited me to share in one of their Ordinary Time Sunday liturgies, that was other than Christian Unity Week's Ecumenical Sunday. That occured after I met him during Christian Unity Week 2006. The Lord Jesus during the Public Ministry of His First Coming into the World, founded One Church, not a multiplicity of Churches. Sadly, the differences and divisions of the past 1,000 years have caused hundreds if not thousands of, Christian demnominations. The Vatican II document, "Decree On Ecumenism", summoned us as Catholics to build and forge unity with our fellow Christians, in anticipation of a re-united single Church, that is one Community of Believers reflecting the essential unity of God's Kingdom. In the spirit of all that Advent and Christmas represent, let us all as Catholic-Christians be universally committed to the cause of Christian Unity.........Joy, Peace, and Gladness, in Christ our Lord and Unifier, Fr. Troy