Tag: Sacraments and spirituality

Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans hold second round of dialogue on baptism

Co-chairs of the commission (from left): Luis Augusto Castro Quiroga, Friederike Nüssel, Alfred Neufeld. Photo by Eleanor Miller
Co-chairs of the commission (from left): Luis Augusto Castro Quiroga, Friederike Nüssel, Alfred Neufeld. Photo by Eleanor Miller

Release date: Sunday, 9 March 2014

Strasbourg, France – “I continue to be inspired by the mutuality of our work,” commented John Rempel of Toronto, Ontario, one of the Mennonite participants in the 26-31 January 2014 second meeting of the Trilateral (Catholic, Lutheran, Mennonite) Dialogue Commission on Baptism.

The general topic of the dialogue, which is to extend over four years, is “Baptism and Incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church.” The theme for this year was “Baptism: God’s Grace in Christ and Human Sin”.

“Everyone is treated equally even though we are by far the smallest confession,” noted Rempel. “We are all trying to rethink the issues in terms of the 21st century, not only the 16th century.”

He commented further, “I find myself grappling especially with two aspects of this year’s meeting. I’m discovering how important sacraments are to Lutherans and Catholics as expressions of God’s initiative: God is mysteriously at work by means of prayer and water, whether we respond to it or not. And yet I can’t understand God’s initiative in the New Testament without the human response to grace.”

“At the same time our partners fear that we put so much weight on the human decision to believe that God’s initiative is pushed to the background. The participants are aware that only through the work of the Holy Spirit will this dialogue lead us closer to the mind of Christ.”

Continue reading “Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans hold second round of dialogue on baptism” →

Amen to it all: my first Holy Communion and then what happened

by John Kotre

My first Holy Communion was white.  It was back in 1948 and the girls wore little bridal outfits and the boys white shirts and pants.  The priest was vested in white and a white cloth covered the communion rail.  The bread I received was itself white–a thin, almost transparent wafer.  I let it dissolve on my tongue.  “You don’t chew Jesus,” Sister Girard had told us.  It was her way of saying “transubstantiation.”

I didn’t chew Jesus but I don’t remember talking to him either.  My face was buried in my hands, and I was imagining what a softening host looked like in my mouth, far from my teeth.  Sister Girard said that communion poured sanctifying grace into our souls, and for years I pictured that grace as milk.  After each communion I checked my milk-bottle soul and saw that the level of grace had risen.  It must have gone down between communions because I was never able to top off the tank.

In my teens the milk bottle gave way to abstract thinking.  Now I could absorb concepts like transubstantiation, and so I did during six years as a Jesuit seminarian.  Continue reading “Amen to it all: my first Holy Communion and then what happened” →

Mennonite worship leaders meet Benedictine hospitality at January retreat

Mount Pleasant, PA —  The 26th Annual Music and Worship Leaders Retreat (MWLR) at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center (LMCC) served as an opportunity for encounter between Mennonites and Catholics in January, as featured speaker Abbot John Klassen OSB, Bridgefolk co-chair, shared concerning Benedictine practices of hospitality.

During their time together, music and worship leaders were inspired and taught by many experienced leaders, including Klassen and Mennonite pastor Isaac S. Villegas. Contained in teachings were various steps and challenges in the area of hospitality among churches. Overall, the planning and resource team created “…a space where change [could] take place”, giving leaders the opportunity to sit back, soak in and worship God as they assessed their current worship styles and brainstormed for years to come.

Continue reading “Mennonite worship leaders meet Benedictine hospitality at January retreat” →

Baptism the focus of trilateral dialogue by Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans

Front row (from left): Luis Augusto Castro Quiroga, Turid Karlsen Sein, Cardinal Koch, Alfred Neufeld. Second row: Musawenkosi Biyela, Rebecca Osiro, Kaisamari Hintikka, Gregory J Fairbanks. Third row: William Henn, Larry Miller, Theodor Dieter. Fourth row: César Garcia, Marie-Hélène Robert, Kwong-Sang Peter Li. Fifth row: Luis M Melo, Fernando Enns, John Rempel.

Rome, Italy/Bogota, Colombia  (MWC) – An international trilateral dialogue between Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans began in Rome, 9-13 December 2012.

According to a joint release issued after the Rome meeting, the overall theme of the five-year process is “Baptism and Incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church.” The release further stated: “This innovative trilateral forum will allow the dialogue to take up questions surrounding the theology and practice of baptism in the respective communions.” Continue reading “Baptism the focus of trilateral dialogue by Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans” →

Communion of saints: Miraculous healing leads to sainthood, helps Mennonites and Catholics deepen friendship

by Laurie Oswald Robinson

Mennonite World Review

Because a Japanese Mennonite man was healed from leukemia after Mennonites and Catholics prayed, a new round of ecumenical dialogue on prayer is stirring up the faithful.

Jun Yamada presents relics of Joseph Freinademetz to Pope John Paul II in the service of canonization for Freinademetz on Oct. 5, 2003, in Rome. — Photo by Society of the Divine Word

Exactly how God said “yes” to prayers for the healing in 1987 of Jun Yamada, a 24-year-old university student in Japan, will always be shrouded in mystery.

But that isn’t keeping participants in Bridgefolk — a group of Mennonites and Catholics united by their faith in Christ — from more deeply exploring the connection between God’s family on Earth and in heaven.

This past July at the annual Bridgefolk gathering, Alan and Eleanor Kreider — longtime Mennonite teachers on church history, worship and mission — shared the account that Jun Yamada’s brother, Nozomu Yamada, had passed on to them in Tokyo. Continue reading “Communion of saints: Miraculous healing leads to sainthood, helps Mennonites and Catholics deepen friendship” →

Michael Turman reflects on experiencing “double eucharist”

Mennonite and Catholic communion
Reflections on an experience at the Bridgefolk conference

article by Michael Turman
in Canadian Mennonite Young Voices 

Michael Turman

I had an experience of God’s presence at St. Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota, in July at the Bridgefolk conference. “Bridgefolk is a movement of sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Catholics,” says its mission statement. Every year Bridgefolk holds a gathering of Mennonites and Catholics to celebrate, explore, and honour each others’ practices and traditions. In practice this happens through friendship and open discussion of shared values. Over the ten or so years that Bridgefolk has been meeting, a committed group has formed. Even though I was attending for the first time, it felt like a family reunion.

In some way, I was among family. The Mennonite and Catholic churches are both like home to me. As the eldest child of a Mennonite and Catholic marriage, I was raised in both churches. I learned the mystery and holiness of the sacraments of baptism and communion from the Catholics and I learned the holy joy of four-part hymn singing and the sacred value of community (and potlucks!) from the Mennonites. I have been spiritually sustained at times both by praying the rosary and by volunteering for Mennonite Central Committee.

With such committed, faithful Christians on both sides of my church family, why must we be Mennonites and Catholics? Why shouldn’t the two churches learn from each other? Continue reading “Michael Turman reflects on experiencing “double eucharist”” →

Reading Scripture, Breaking Bread: Bridgefolk 2012

Bridgefolk co-chairs Abbot John Klassen and Rev. Marlene Kropf.

Saint Joseph, MN (BRIDGEFOLK) — Forty Mennonites and Catholics gathered July 26-29 at Saint Benedict’s monastery in St. Joseph,MN for the eleventh annual Bridgefolk conference.

Bridgefolk is a movement of sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Roman Catholics who come together to celebrate each other’s traditions, explore each other’s practices, and honor each other’s contribution to the mission of Christ’s Church.

This year’s conference was the third in series on shared practices central to the Christian life and was organized around the theme, “Formed in the Word: Scripture and Peacemaking.”  Keynote speakers were Michael Patella (Saint John’sAbbey) and Helmut Harder (Mennonite Church Canada), who gave presentations on Catholic and Mennonite ways of interpreting and applying Scripture.

In addition to historical traditions, the conference focused on spiritual practices of reading Scripture.  Continue reading “Reading Scripture, Breaking Bread: Bridgefolk 2012” →

“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” →

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” →