Co-Workers of the Truth 1/27

The impatience aroused in us by the history of Christianity up to the present repeatedly gives rise to the thought: Should we not rub out the whole history of these past two thousand years, raze the wall of dogmas and creeds, and begin all over again with just Jesus Christ as the door? But however tempting this thought may be, to do so would be to make unity a task, a production, and the Church a product we have made ourselves. We cannot justify ourselves in this manner. For, basically, we should only be rebuilding the wall against God and placing our trust in what we ourselves do. But the wall of the law and the wall that surrounds God are not razed by the great deeds of men – such deeds only make them higher; they are razed by him who brought God’s own love into the world and suffered on the Cross the burden of all the achievements of this world. That is not the way to reach our goal. When we speak of unity, we must stop dreaming of the great achievements and brave deeds that we ourselves have accomplished. The Epistle to the Ephesians advises us differently: it challenges us to let ourselves be built together into the new man, into the new humanity created by Christ. “Men cannot create unity; they must find it” (J.Gnilka, Der Epheserbrief, 1971, p. 142). The true Church is not of our making; she existed before us; she was created by Christ. Our task is to let ourselves be built into her. If we do this, if we patiently allow the Lord to shape us into building stones, if we stop fashioning the Church for ourselves, if we let ourselves be led where we will not, then there will be unity; then walls will be penetrable despite our differences.

From: Ordinariatskorrespomdenz, January 20, 1978