Engaging in Dialogue

Friends:

I regularly reread sections of Pope John Paul II's Encyclical Ut Unum Sint--On Commitment to Ecumenism. My copy is really getting to look worn.

Paragraph 35 has an important point:

"Dialogue cannot take place merely on a horizontal level, being restricted to meetings, exchanges of points of view or even the sharing of gifts proper to each Community. It has also a primarily vertical thrust, directed toward the One who, as the Redeemer of the world and he Lord of History, is himself our Reconciliation."

We acknowledge to one another that we are people who have sinned and we need this reconciliation in Christ through the power of the Spirit.

It seems to me that this is key--Christ is our Reconciliation.
And we all need this Reconciliation, again and again.

Peace,
John