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The
Bishop's Journal
June 2001
"By this shall they know that you are my disciples."
On the night in which he was handed over to death, Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment. "Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." Of all the words that Jesus could choose to leave with his disciples as a final message, these were the ones. In fact, Jesus is so insistent for us to grasp the significance of this message that he goes on to identify our love for one another as being the definitive mark of our fellowship with him. "By this everyone shall know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
One part of the body can't dismiss or claim to have no need of any other part of the body without doing violence to the whole body; without muting humanity's common hymn of doxology. "By this," Jesus says, "will people know that you are my disciples." The mandate is clear. We are called to choose the way of love, confident in the knowledge that there is no more powerful means for us to communicate the essence of the one whose name we are called to praise and glorify.
On Sunday morning July 8, it is anticipated that members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada will join together to celebrate a common declaration of Full Communion. The fact that we are now so close to anticipating such an event indicates that we have made some progress in obeying our Lord's commandment.
In recent years, as our respective church bodies have encountered one another, prayed with one another and taken a greater share in one another's lives, we've all, I think, been granted a healthy, and necessary, dose of ecclesial humility. We've been given the opportunity to view the life of faith through one another's eyes and to join our voices to an ever-expanding chorus of praise and thanksgiving.
Writing to the Romans, St. Paul says, "May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, so that with one mind, you may, with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God." We seek unity because God desires it. Why? So that collectively, we might be more fervent and faithfully offer the gifts of our worship and praise.
I thank God for the many blessings that will be granted to us in the gift of Full Communion. May its spirit inspire and amplify our common expressions of doxology and praise. And may the love expressed through this new relationship help the world to more fully know the love of a God whose gracious intention toward the world is beyond our ability to fully comprehend or imagine.
The Rev. Michael J. Pryse,
Bishop
