Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
TREASURES FROM OUR TRADITION
	Over the past century, a desire to recover a deep sense of unity among all believers in Christ has grown. The “ecumenical movement” (from the Greek word meaning the “the whole inhabited world”) began among Protestant Christians, but was given great energy in 1920 with a letter from the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, calling for closer dialogue and cooperation among Christians. In 1960, Pope John XXIII invited Protestant and Orthodox observers to the Second Vatican Council. In 1964, the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism named these Christians “separated brethren,” a huge leap forward from the time of labeling them as “outside the Church.” A year later, a new pope, Paul VI, and the Orthodox Patriarch officially nullified the condemnations that walled off East from West for nine hundred years.
	The pace and optimism of the 1960s has sadly waned, and the signs of progress toward unity are few; yet there are wider agreements on sharing Communion among various Christian denominations, and among Protestants agreements regarding sharing of ecclesiastical life and ministry. Among the success stories of the ecumenical movement are greater cooperation among Christian clergy, a similar Lectionary for Protestants and Catholics, and even experiments in the monastic life and common worship.
—James Field