What does God require from us? - Micah 6:6-8

On Friday May 17^th, St. Joseph R.C. and Holy Saviour Anglican Parishes came together for the 2013’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This special gathering took place at St. Joseph’s R.C. Church and the evenings proceedings were led by Reverend Shelly-Ann Tenia of the Holy Saviour Anglican Church  and Fr. Karol Wielgosz, O.P.  Parish Priest  of St. Joseph R.C.  Around the time of Pentecost every year the Week of Christian Unity is observed to highlight the various ways of adoring God and through this week especially, hearts are touched and it reminds us that our neighbour’s ways are not in any way strange because, at the end the day, we all worship the one, true God in the very same manner. This year’s theme comes to us from an ecumenical group in South India and it is taken from the Prophet Micah 6:6-8, “What does God require of us?” which calls us to act justly in the world as our sole intention. What God requires of us today is to walk the path of justice, mercy and humility.

For the first time during the Ecumenical Service, a homily was delivered in the form of a dialogue, where both Fr. Karol and Rev. Shelly-Ann preached simultaneously about the theme for the evening taken from the Prophet Micah and as they opened their joint sharing, both of them shared similarly that God requires us to be united as ONE. According to Rev. Shelly Ann, we are called to be “that visible sign of the triune God, that visible sign of his love, unity and forgiveness”.  But how can we define ourselves of just that? One of the key points to factor in as Fr. Karol indicated is to “Stop defining ourselves based on our differences (as different denominations) and start doing the work that God has called us to do”. This work that God has called us refers to one word: Love! As children of God, we are mandated to love God, love ourselves but also to Love our neighbours. In the kingdom of God, we don’t pick and choose who we want to love, instead, our Love must be endless towards everyone- to vagrants, to the indigent, to those who may have hurt or offended us, to other Christian and Non-Christian groups that do not worship in the same way that we do, and even to those who suffer from severe illnesses such as AIDS; because Jesus loves everyone in the same way and we are called to see Christ in every single person.

Since this is the first Ecumenical Service to be held in the parish, the two communities (St. Joseph & Holy Saviour) have brainstormed and mustered up a collective idea that could bring this Unity of Christians alive and active and one of the initiatives that was brought forth in the joint homily for the mixed congregation to meditate and now act upon is to offer our time, talent and resources towards creating a ministry that assists those who are in need of the basic necessities such as those who are hungry or in need of clothes or even counselling. The main idea is to pool the resources from both Christian groups to ensure that everyone is loved and taken care of and from this we are living out our goal of what God requires of us. HERE you can view some photos that were taken at tonight's proceedings.