Tag: Bridgefolk

“Deeper spirituality” by Andre Gingerich Stoner

The following article appeared in the August 20 issue of Mennonite World Review

In the mid-1980s, Dawn Ruth Nelson was part of a group of young mission workers trying to live out the Mennonite values of community, discipleship and nonviolence amid “the troubles” of Northern Ireland. When the communal living experiment ended explosively a few years later, she came to the painful awareness that her spiritual resources were not enough to sustain the ideals she was trying to practice. This led to a “desperate need for a more meaningful prayer life, a deeper spirituality, a closer connection to God” and her first silent retreat at a Catholic monastery.

When she returned to the U.S. she also began to explore the spiritual practices that had sustained Mennonites of earlier generations. Continue reading ““Deeper spirituality” by Andre Gingerich Stoner” →

Mennonite Church USA reports on 2012 Bridgefolk conference

Mennonite Church USA has published the following report on the 2012 Bridgefolk conference:

Roughly forty people, Mennonites and Catholics, gathered for three days of fellowship, study and worship in July, hosted by the sisters of St. Benedict Monastery in Minnesota. The group explored the formative practice of studying and praying with scripture in the two traditions. The group also engaged in ongoing discernment around Eucharist. As is the pattern at each gathering, the group participated in an agape meal, which included footwashing. The group also celebrated a “Double Eucharist.” A presider from each tradition gave a homily and then led in the ritual. Each group prayerfully observed but did not partake in the other’s ritual. The group spent several hours reflecting and sharing together about this experience. To learn more about the Bridgefolk movement visit www.bridgefolk.net.

Please join in prayer for Margaret O’Gara

Margaret O'GaraWe are sad to have to share news of the declining health of Margaret O’Gara.  Bridgefolk has been exceptionally blessed to benefit from Margaret’s friendship and wisdom as one of the leading Catholic ecumenical thinkers on the scene today.  Margaret is a theologian at the University of Toronto, a member of the Collegeville Institute Board of Directors, and a recent president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, as well as a member of the Bridgefolk Board.  A private person, Margaret has not wished to call attention to her cancer.  But a letter from Donald Ottenhoff, executive director of the Collegeville Institute, updating colleagues on Margaret’s condition, has begun to circulate widely among theologian friends.  So it seems appropriate to share excerpts with Margaret’s friends in Bridgefolk as well:

I write to inform you that our friend and colleague Margaret O’Gara has entered hospice care during this past week.  As many of you know, Margaret has undergone treatment for cancer over the past two years, even as she has continued to pursue her teaching schedule as her medical regime has allowed.  Margaret’s husband Michael reports that Margaret is still functioning pretty well, but that it became clear to them that the time had come for Margaret to benefit from professional care. …

Michael tells me that he and Margaret are of course sad about this turn in Margaret’s condition, but that they are “feeling calm and collected at the most fundamental level,” and that they find themselves “greatly consoled by our Christian hope in the resurrection, and by support from family and friends.”

Please keep Margaret and Michael in your prayers.

Let us join with others in this prayer and concern.

Gerald W. Schlabach

Ivan Kauffman surveys 50 years of Mennonite-Catholic dialogue

Earlier this month Bridgefolk co-founder Ivan Kauffman spoke at Assembly Mennonite Church in Goshen, Indiana.  His talk offers a succinct overview of how Mennonite-Catholic dialogue has unfolded in the last 50 years. 

Called Together to Be Peacemakers
Mennonite Catholic Dialogue 1962-2012

Ivan J. Kauffman
Assembly Mennonite Church
Goshen, Indiana
July 8, 2012

It has been said we over-estimate what can be changed in one year, and under-estimate what can be changed in ten years. My life experience confirms that. But I would add that we can not even imagine the change that can take place in 50 years.

When the Second Vatican Council opened 50 years ago this October I was a student at Goshen College, at a time when Carl Kreider was still wearing a plain coat, and Mary Oyer was still wearing a covering. None of us then had any idea this event would affect us—that it would permanently change relationships between Mennonites and Catholics and launch us into a new era in the Church’s peace witness—but that is what has happened.

I could keep us here for hours telling stories about how this happened but I will briefly mention only a few. Continue reading “Ivan Kauffman surveys 50 years of Mennonite-Catholic dialogue” →

The anguish of imperfect communion

by Julia Smucker

(Our friends at the Ekklesia Project recently posted the following reflection by Julia Smucker on Bridgefolk experiences with the challenge of sharing communion.) 

For about the past five years, I have been a participant in the Mennonite/Catholic ecumenical movement known as Bridgefolk – first as a Mennonite drawn toward communion with the Catholic Church but also strongly connected to my ecclesial heritage, and now as a Catholic seeking to maintain that connection with the church that formed me.  I had agonized over the choice I was presented with in the unavoidable reality that joining with one communion would mean breaking with another, and wondered whether I could do so without it being tantamount to a rejection, a cutting off of my roots.  And then I discovered a group of people who had been agonizing over this division for years before me.  Continue reading “The anguish of imperfect communion” →

Darrin Snyder Belousek to become next Bridgefolk director

News Release
June 11, 2012

Collegeville, MN (BRIDGEFOLK) – As Bridgefolk meets for its 11th annual conference in July, the grassroots movement for dialogue and sharing between Mennonites and Roman Catholics will mark its hopes for a second decade by welcoming Darrin Snyder Belousek of Lima, Ohio, as its new executive director.

Snyder Belousek will replace long-time director and Bridgefolk co-founder Gerald Schlabach of St. Paul, Minnesota. Schlabach has been encouraging fellow Bridgefolk leaders to begin nurturing a new generation of leaders that brings fresh insights into the difficult and changing church scene that is challenging all Christian traditions.

A member of the Bridgefolk Board for six years, Snyder Belousek agrees.  One of his hopes for a second decade of Bridgefolk, he says, is to “solidify what’s been accomplished in the first decade and put in place ways of handing that work over into the stewardship of a ‘next generation’ of leaders.”

Snyder Belousek has been actively engaged in Bridgefolk since its first summer conference in 2002.  He has made significant contributions to the movement as a board member, as a presenter at summer conferences, and as writer.  At the local level, he served as coordinator of the Michiana Bridgefolk group from 2005-2008 and also as one of the planners of the Mennonite Catholic Theological Colloquium, which met at Notre Dame in 2007. Continue reading “Darrin Snyder Belousek to become next Bridgefolk director” →

The Mennonite features Mennonite Catholic visionary Gene Herr

Holy restlessness leads to home in Christ:
Gene Herr became a spiritual father to many people in his lifetime.

by Laurie Oswald Robinson

Cover story, The Mennonite, June 2012

 
June 2012 cover of The MennoniteA few days before he died on Jan. 1 in Hesston, Kan., the late H. Eugene (Gene) Herr said to his daughter, Ellen Awe, “I don’t understand why I am not going anywhere.”

The comment didn’t surprise Awe. Her father, a leader and visionary in the Mennonite church, had always lived with a holy restlessness. It was born from his passion to follow God’s call, even when to do so required leaving safe and familiar lands for  daring and new territories.

To his family and friends, he seemed he was moving as a pilgrim on his way to the promised land. They saw his movement as not born of one who was lost and trying to find his way “home” alone. They believed it as born out of passion for being truly found in Christ. He desired to give himself so fully to Jesus that no mile of God’s intended journey for him would be left untraveled.

But on this day, it was time for him to rest a bit before traversing the final leg of his earthly trek.

Awe replied to her father, “It’s because you    really can’t go anywhere right now, Dad. It’s OK for you to just be here and to let us love you. …”

“He accepted this and put his trust in us and graciously let us make decisions for him,” she says. “The concept of his ‘terminal’ illness included both moving and resting. … He was terminal but not as in an end. He was in a terminal, the place where one waits for the next leg of one’s travels.”

As he battled brain cancer for two years, it seemed God was calling Herr in his final days to integrate his doing with being. The integration was a model of the Christian discipleship Gene and Mary, his wife of 56 years, shared with fellow believers in the Mennonite church and beyond. Continue reading “The Mennonite features Mennonite Catholic visionary Gene Herr” →

Bridgefolk invites applicants for part-time Coordinator position

 

Bridgefolk, an organization committed to ecumenical dialogue and sharing between Mennonites and Roman Catholics, seeks a part-time Coordinator to work eight hours per week assisting the Executive Director with administrative tasks, including financial bookkeeping, grant writing, fundraising appeals, and database management.  The Coordinator will also assist with communication needs, including correspondence, website postings, and editing work, as well as event planning.

The ideal candidate would bring a collaborative spirit, an ability to work independently, enthusiasm about ecumenical relations, and good communication and logistical skills. The Bridgefolk Board welcomes applicants who can volunteer their time; as funding is available, the Board aims to provide an honorarium for this role.

To apply for this position, or request more information, write to search[at]bridgefolk.net.

Darrin Snyder Belousek publishes major study on the atonement and peacemaking

Bridgefolk participant and board member Darrin Snyder Belousek has just published a major new book on atonement.  The book develops a biblical theology of the cross in connection with justice and peacemaking.  Published by Eerdmans, the book is entitled Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of Cross and the Mission of the Church.   Belousek notes that “one chapter focuses on ecumenical peacemaking in the church and is directly influenced by my experience in and reflection on Bridgefolk.”  Here is the publisher’s description and a link to purchase online:

In this substantial new study Darrin Belousek presents a comprehensive and critical examination of standard Protestant atonement theology and offers an alternative to the theory of penal substitution that is both biblically grounded and theologically orthodox. Beginning with Paul’s message of the cross and the Gospel narratives of Jesus, Belousek develops a comprehensive vision of justice and peace in light of the cross — a vision that connects theology and ethics, salvation and mission. Integrating his biblical study and theological reflection with philosophical analysis, historical considerations, and social-scientific evidence, Belousek shows that Christian thinking on atonement is no mere academic exercise, but rather a practical theology that speaks to such concrete realities as economic justice, capital punishment, the war on terror, ethnic and religious conflict, and Christian disunity.

Click here to order.