The 'Ecumenical' Hope of the Pauline Year

The Ecumenical Dream of Pope Benedict and the Patriarch of Constantinople points toward the message and the invitation of the Pauline Year.

ROMA (Chiesa) - Benedict XVI and Bartholomew I, the patriarch of Constantinople, prayed in front of the tomb of the apostle Paul, beneath the main altar of the Roman basilica of Saint Paul's Outside the Walls.

It is the vigil of the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. And together, they have inaugurated a special jubilee year dedicated to the apostle Paul.

The Pauline Year, which began on June 28, will last until June 29, 2009. The occasion is the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of the apostle, which historians place at between 7 and 10 A.D.

Benedict XVI announced this special jubilee year for the first time one year ago, on June 28, 2007. And now, this is how he explained the event to the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square, before the Angelus on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul this year:

"Rome will be the center of gravity for this special jubilee, and in particular the basilica of Saint Paul's Outside the Walls, and the place of his martyrdom, at Tre Fontane. But it will also involve the entire Church, beginning from Tarsus, the city of Paul's birth, and the other Pauline sites that are the destination of pilgrimages in modern-day Turkey, as also in the Holy Land, and on the island of Malta, where the Apostle landed after a shipwreck and sowed the fertile seed of the Gospel.

"In reality, the horizon of the Pauline Year cannot be anything but universal, because Saint Paul was, par excellence, the apostle of those who with respect to the Jews were 'far off' and who 'have become near by the blood of Christ' (cf. Eph. 2:13). For this reason, still today, in a world that has become 'smaller', but where very many have still not encountered the Lord Jesus, the jubilee of Saint Paul invites all Christians to be missionaries of the Gospel.

"This missionary dimension must always be accompanied by that of unity, represented by Saint Peter, the 'rock' upon which Jesus Christ built his Church. As the liturgy emphasizes, the charisms of the two great apostles are complementary for the edification of the one People of God, and Christians cannot give valid testimony to Christ if they are not united among themselves."

Universal and ecumenical.

For a church that is "catholic" and "one." This is the twofold horizon that the Bishop of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople wanted to give to the Pauline Year, proclaimed together by the respective Churches of Rome and of the East.

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At the Mass celebrated on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the two successors of the apostles entered together into the basilica of St. Peter's; together they went up to the altar, preceded by a Latin deacon and by an Orthodox one, carrying the book of the Gospels; together they listened to the chanting of the Gospel in Latin and in Greek; together they delivered the homily, first the patriarch and then the pope, after a brief introduction by the latter; together they recited the Creed, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan symbol in the original Greek, according to the liturgical use of the Byzantine Churches; they exchanged the kiss of peace, and at the end they blessed the faithful together.

After almost a thousand years of schism between East and West, a liturgy so visibly oriented to unity has been celebrated by the bishop of Rome and by the patriarch of Constantinople.

The relationship with the Protestant communities remains deeper in the shadows for now. But the Pauline Year could be rich in significance for the dialogue with these communities as well. The leading thinkers of the Reformation - from Luther and Calvin to Karl Barth, Rudolph Bultmann, and Paul Tillich - elaborated their thought beginning above all with the Letter of Paul to the Romans.

And the contribution that the Pauline Year could make to dialogue with the Jews is no less relevant.

Paul was an observant Jew and a rabbi, before falling down blinded by Christ on the road to Damascus. And his conversion to the Risen One never meant, for him, breaking with his original faith.

The promise of God to Abraham and the covenant on Sinai were always for Paul one and the same with the "new and eternal" covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus. Joseph Ratzinger has written memorable pages on this unity between the Old and New Testament, in his book "Jesus of Nazareth."

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Chiesa is a wonderful source on all things Catholic in Europe. It is skillfully edited by Sandro Magister. SANDRO MAGISTER was born on the feast of the Guardian Angels in 1943, in the town of Busto Arsizio in the archdiocese of Milan. The following day he was baptized into the Catholic Church. His wife’s name is Anna, and he has two daughters, Sara and Marta. He lives in Rome.