What means unity of Christians? Do you think is it possible to worship together belonging to different churches? I don’t know what do you think, but in Holliston (MA), this year we celebrated an Ecumenical Ash Wednesday and I can tell you that it is possible!
It was a marvelous experience to find out that the Kingdom of God is not too far away from us. We felt an enormous sense of communion. Christians belonging to different denominations gathered together in the same Church, worshiping the Lord to start together this Lenten season.
This is the word that I want to underline: TOGETHER! The problem among us Christians, is not our difference but our division. Doesn’t matter if we worship the Lord in many different ways, but it matters if we worship the Lord and we hate others who worship in different ways. This is not a Christian habit; this is not what Jesus taught us.
This special pray time and worship was a chance to believe that is possible to make a better world. “Make the world a single family”, as our Founder loved to say, it is not just a dream, but instead it is a true fact we are living right now!
Moreover, we celebrated this event in St. Michael, the Holliston’s Episcopal church, but the pastor Rev. Sarah Robbins-Cole could not be there for celebrating the funeral of her brother died some days ago. However, Rev. Mark Peterson from Christ the King, Lutheran Church, presided the ceremony following the Episcopal Ritual; On top, Rev. Bonnie Steinroeder, pastor of the First Congregational Church preached the sermon and Fr. Carl Chudy, Xaverian Missionary (Catholic) prayed and marked the forehead with the ashes; At the end the Rev. Scott Foster, pastor of the First Baptist Church gave us the blessing.
We hope to see more celebration like that, because they help us to figure out that we belong to Christ before of our single churches…