“While experiencing these days the painful situation of our divisions, we Christians can and must look to the future with hope,” Pope Benedict XVI told a packed basilica of St Paul’s outside-the-walls Wednesday evening, “because Christ’s victory means to overcome everything that keeps us from sharing the fullness of life with Him and with others.”

Source: Vatican Radio.

That from the Bishop of Rome’s address at vespers on the final day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It is fitting that this week ends on the Feast of the Conversation of St. Paul, because St. Paul never fails to attribute conversion — which is necessarily a prerequisite to unity — to God’s grace touching his life. I think that the Feast day ending this week is especially befitting to the dialogue between Reformed Christians and Catholics, here at Called to Communion. As one who spent most of my life living as a Calvinist, reflecting on the necessity of God’s grace (even for the tiny daily conversions that steer me from sin) comes more easily to me than it would if I had come from a different sect of Protestantism. Only by a dramatic outpouring of God’s grace will we end our disunity and obey the call of Christ our King, His great call to communion.

Loving God, by the infinite grace merited for us by your Divine Son, may your Holy Spirit fill us, Catholics and Calvinists, with a heart for Christian unity and a willingness to heed your call to communion.  May we learn and communicate with a desire for truth and a love for one another. May we remember to look to the future with hope on account of Christ’s victory.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.