While the Tim Hortons Brier is going on at the Credit Union Centre, a concurrent national curling event will take place at the Nutana Curling Club. That event is the Friars’ Briar, a bonspiel for clergy from all denominations and regions of Canada. The Friars’ Briar is national in theory, says Augustana Lutheran Pastor David
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There’s nothing more Catholic than ecumenism, nothing more Christian than unity, nothing more urgent than the need to heal divisions in the body of Christ, but none of it will happen based on resentments, fears and identity politics, the head of the World Council of Churches told a couple hundred people in Toronto March 14.

On his first official visit to Canada, Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit laid out challenges to ecumenism which he said oppose the Christian mandate to fulfill the Lord’s Prayer — “Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.”

“We are forced to ask whether we are seeking a consensus for the sake of our own institution, for our tradition, for our own group,” said Tveit. “Or if we are seeking a consensus that is giving space for the other, for the wholeness of God’s Church and God’s creation.”
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[WCC News] “Christians are to acknowledge that changing one’s religion is a decisive step that must be accompanied by sufficient time for reflection and preparation, through a process ensuring full personal freedom.” This assertion is one of the guiding principles for Christian mission in India suggested in early March by a consultation convened under the
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The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has today revealed that he is to step down from his role at the end of the year. His decision comes after 10 years in the post and after accepting the position of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
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On Friday, March 16th, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a communiqué regarding the current status of relations with the traditionalist Catholic organization Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), founded by the late Archbishop Lefebvre. For some years now the CDF has been engaged in a consultation with the SSPX regarding a number of matters of dispute. The letter states that the position [the SSPX] expressed is not sufficient to overcome the doctrinal problems which lie at the foundation of the rift between the Holy See and the SSPX.
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“Unity” belongs to the concepts that should be constantly discussed. Life is changing, also the life of the churches and their life together. So are their understanding of unity, their challenges to unity and their contributions to it.

Images can stimulate our reflections, without saying everything or being exclusive, they can nurture our imagination and our ability to be creative. Images from nature can give us a sense of reality, and a deeper sense of how we are a part of a living reality. I have been reflecting on an image, actually a photo, that give me some new insights, deepening my reflections on this topic that I have been discussing and striving for during the last 20 years of study and work. The photo is of some lichen, growing in a circle, across the deep crevice in the rock on which they grow. It seems to be challenged by the split in the rock, but nevertheless grows across it. This striking image has encouraged me to look at unity as something of a double reality. It is growing life, yet still making a structure. It belongs to the essential nature of this lichen to grow in circles, to become part of a unity. I am told by my dear colleague from Tanzania that the same is true for banana trees, they also grow like families in circles. The photo taken just outside our small summer house at the coast of Norway last summer, is from a bare rock next to the sea on a small island, out in the big sea that unites Norway with the continent of Europe and further more with the whole globe. I wonder what images in Canadian nature might inspire you to these kinds of reflections.

Thus, I believe that «Unity» is a concept that requires complementary perspectives. I have brought my reflections together in 10 pairs of perspectives, describing unity, to offer you here for your consideration today.
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Remembering the common roots of the Christianity they share, Roman Catholics and Anglicans should renew their commitments to praying and working for Christian unity, Pope Benedict XVI said.

The Pope and Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, held an evening prayer service March 10 at Rome’s Church of St. Gregory on the Caelian Hill, the church from which Pope Gregory the Great sent St. Augustine of Canterbury and his fellow monks to evangelize England in 597.

The service was part of celebrations marking the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of the Camaldolese branch of the Benedictine order. Camaldoli monks and nuns live and pray at the Church of St. Gregory and have an active program of ecumenical contacts.
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