Tag: bible

How Communion with the Cornerstone Could Create Full Communion

~ cornerstoneunites

Photo by 愚木混株 Yumu on Unsplash

Imagine having access to a medicinal treatment known to heal what is broken into a united wholeness but before administering it insisting that everyone, patients included, agree about which doctor is supremely in charge of the medical field and how each doctor and medical group rank and order among each other. 

It seems to me this is a similar approach to the full communion conversation between Orthodox and Catholic Christianity.   People are expected to be healthy and whole somehow on their own before being allowed to receive medication together that is known to makes us healthy and whole. 

While we can celebrate our agreements along with how fraternal friendships among East and West clergy of the highest ranks are the best in years, hinging full communion based on human will seems too fragile a foundation than what God has already done:

“…that they may be one as We are.” (John 17.11)

 “…that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us…” (John. 17.21, 22)

“…that they may be made perfect in one…” (John 17.23)

How much faster would full communion be realized if we shifted emphasis to our full communion with God?   

God Himself changes hearts and minds as people spend time with Him and grow in loving relationship with Him when they commune with Him.  If this happens on an individual basis and within a local community why not apply this to Orthodox and Catholic unity?

If East and West clergy and laity began receiving the medicine of immortality-the Eucharist- with the Christians with which we want to be in full communion, could God Himself change us and inspire us so we could more quickly resolve our complex, complicated organizational and theological differences?    

It is my hope that Orthodox and Catholic Christians will soon be instructed by our Hierarchs to receive the Eucharist together trusting that our True Cornerstone God makes us perfect in one, in full communion, while we work through our differences.

Jesus the Christ Defines Christian Unity

~ cornerstoneunites

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Disciple John is concerned because there was someone doing the works of Jesus Christ who was not exactly following them.  John forbid him because, to use modern Christian terminology, he was not recognized by the disciples as in communion with them.

Jesus replies, “Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in my name can soon afterward speak evil of me.  For he who is not against us is on our side.”[1]

Eastern and Western Christians work miracles in Jesus’ name, do not speak evil of Him, and are not against Jesus and the disciples.   According to Jesus’ definition, we Christians are already on His side altogether.

Our present unity is proven even more when certain Christians in both East and West are discovered many years after their physical death intact, that is, the body is not decomposing; they are incorrupt! 

How can Christians living in division experience these same miracles if we disagree on so much?

Perhaps because we are communing from one Divine source whose very Being unites us!

Our reality is as if God is saying, ‘Look, I’m blessing you the same as each other while you continue to fight over who is more right.”

[1] Mark. 9.38-40

https://www.si.edu/object/photogravure-painting-woodland-scene:saam_1967.72.330

Welcome to the Family

~ cornerstoneunites

The Greek word in the image means Crowns and refers to the rite in the Greek Orthodox marriage service where the couple are crowned in oneness with God’s blessings conveyed through the priests, unworthy as they are.

Traditionally Greek : Stefana

https://openverse.org/image/3c89346c-4431-4b32-8b35-c7a1dd9d1d01?q=greek%20wedding

The movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” has a touching scene displaying the desire to marry and belong to the entire family. After the fiance has freely chosen to be baptized he lovingly says to his wife-to-be, “I’m Greek now.”

Similarly, when someone is baptized in a local church it is said that they have become Christian, Orthodox, Catholic, or one of the Protestant denominations; some even say they are a member of the Body of Christ.

Jesus is quoted as saying they become something different. He says His disciples are to go and make disciples of every nation. (Matthew 28.19-20). Some churches today use the term “catechumens” instead.

Then Jesus says to baptize those disciples in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Very literally that person becomes a disciple of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

In hoping for when all Christians embrace that we are united by the Cornerstone Christ, going forward after every baptism each Christian tradition could exclaim with great joy, “Now you are a disciple of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; welcome to the family!”

To read ideas for how Christian traditions could remain diverse in our newly expressed oneness, please read this post, https://cornerstoneunites.com/2024/02/14/a-three-in-one-solution-for-christian-unity/

Unexpected Christmas & Lenten Gifts

~ cornerstoneunites

https://www.flickr.com/people/frted/
https://openverse.org/image/06716a17-83e9-4f67-8e07-9cfa8fe475d2?q=nativity%20of%20christ

During the 2023 Christmas season, the local Christian radio stations played traditional and modern Christmas music.  On Christmas day, the radio hosts spoke movingly about Jesus’ birth as the Messiah Incarnate.  Their messages made Western Christianity seem to proclaim the very same beliefs about Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary as do Eastern Christians.   

Inspired by the Lenten season, that season of changing one’s mindset and returning to God- sometimes even in a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn- Christian unity sounds simpler when returning to Jesus’ teaching about how His Church is being built together.

There is an applicable dialogue between Jesus and Peter which is written in three of the four Gospels.  Here is a portion of it as it is written in the Gospel of Matthew 16.13-18.

“When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”  So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church…”

Jesus validates Peter’s faithful response with a pun filled proclamation, ‘…you are Peter (his name means rock in Aramaic and Greek) and on this rock (the rock solid revelation that Jesus is the Christ) is the foundation upon which I will build My (emphasis mine) church.’

Jesus says He is the one who builds people into this group He calls ‘church’ based on their own confession that He is the Christ (Messiah), the Son of the Living God.    

Because Lent invites us to change our mindset to return to God, church leaders would change how they have been thinking about the criteria for unity. Doing so would make it possible to announce in our lifetime that Eastern and Western Christian unity has already happened by Jesus the Christ Who builds people into His church when they confess belief in His rock solid criteria as expressed above.

Such an announcement of unity may also acknowledge that the many and serious disagreements between Christians’ theologies and traditions will continue to be studied and possibly some of them even solved with God’s grace and guidance in our theological dialogues as we live and grow together as His one church.

*For an idea of what the three Christian Churches could exist like as one, please read “A Three in One Solution for Christian Unity” in this list of posts.