Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Not long ago, I said:

>I personally believe that the unity in love as I have outlined it, based
>on the belief to repentance, that Jesus of the Bible is God's eternal love
>to all his children, of every Christian denomination is not only possible,
>but is clearly pre-eminent in the scriptures, and also in documents from
>the highest levels of both the Catholic and Anglican churches.  And it is
>the kind of love that can be seen by the whole world.

Here's another reference document along those very same lines.  Like I
said, I ain't makin' this stuff up.  It ain't my idea.  I just read the
Bible and try to comment on what I think it says.  I also occasionally try
to read, without bias, what some of the highest authorities in various
Christian denominations say, whether non-Catholic or Catholic, and then I
comment on what I think they are saying, especially if it seems to say the
same things about Christian unity in the love of Jesus.

I believe a bunch of us are already saying a lot of the same things
regarding Cu.  I'm telling you, we've got something started in common
together already in the two concepts which comprise the DUALITY OF
RIGHTEOUSNESS AND BROTHERLY LOVE IN JESUS OF SCRIPTURE which we already have
together to use to build on toward Cu, if we will just listen to each other
a little bit.  You can see it over and over, both in the Bible and in the
literature
of all kinds of Christian groups and denominations, both Catholic and
non-Catholic.

Please note, a lot of the CAPITALIZATION EMPHASIS IS MINE, because
sometimes CAPITALIZATION is the only effective emphasis in text type
emails.  Also, I've cut it liberally, but only for emphasis.

Below are some excerpts from the document titled:

>APOSTOLIC LETTER
>NOVO MILLENNIO INEUNTE
>OF HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II TO THE BISHOPS
>CLERGY AND LAY FAITHFUL AT THE CLOSE
>OF THE GREAT JUBILEE OF THE YEAR 2000
> From the Vatican, on 6 January, the Solemnity of the Epiphany, in the
> year 2001, the twenty-third of my Pontificate.


>It is not therefore a matter of inventing a "new programme". The PROGRAMME
>ALREADY EXISTS: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living
>Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has ITS CENTRE IN CHRIST
>HIMSELF, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may
>live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its
>fulfilment in the heavenly Jerusalem. This is a programme which does not
>change with shifts of times and cultures, even though it takes account of
>time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and effective
>communication. This programme for all times is our programme for the Third
>Millennium...


>I therefore earnestly exhort the Pastors of the particular Churches, with
>the help of all sectors of God's People, confidently to plan the stages of
>the journey ahead, harmonizing the choices of each diocesan community with
>those of neighbouring Churches AND OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH.


>It is necessary therefore to rediscover the full practical significance of
>Chapter 5 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium,
>dedicated to the "UNIVERSAL CALL TO HOLINESS". The Council Fathers laid
>such stress on this point, not just to embellish ecclesiology with a kind
>of spiritual veneer, but to make the call to holiness an intrinsic and
>essential aspect of their teaching on the Church. The rediscovery of the
>Church as "mystery", or as a people "gathered together by the unity of the
>Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit",15 was bound to bring with it a
>rediscovery of the Church's "holiness", understood in the basic sense of
>belonging to him who is in essence the Holy One, the "thrice Holy" (cf. Is
>6:3). To profess the Church as holy means to point to her as the Bride of
>Christ, for whom he gave himself precisely in order to make her holy (cf.
>Eph 5:25-26). This as it were objective gift of HOLINESS OFFERED TO ALL
>THE BAPTIZED.
>
>But the gift in turn becomes a task, which must shape the whole of
>Christian life: "This is the will of God, YOUR SANCTIFICATION" (1 Th 4:3).
>It is a duty which concerns not only certain Christians: "ALL THE
>CHRISTIAN FAITHFUL, of whatever state or rank, are called to the FULLNESS
>OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE AND THE THE PERFECTION OF CHARITY".16


>LISTENTING TO THE WORD
>39. There is no doubt that this primacy of holiness and prayer is
>inconceivable without A RENEWED LISTENING TO THE WORD OF GOD. Ever since
>the Second Vatican Council underlined the pre-eminent role of the word of
>God in the life of the Church, great progress has certainly been made in
>devout listening to Sacred Scripture and attentive study of it. Scripture
>has its rightful place of honour in the public prayer of the Church.
>Individuals and communities now make extensive use of the Bible, and AMONG
>LAY PEOPLE THERE ARE MANY WHO DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO SCRIPTURE with the
>valuable help of theological and biblical studies. But it is above all the
>work of evangelization and catechesis which is drawing new life from
>attentiveness to the word of God. Dear brothers and sisters, this
>development needs to be consolidated and deepened, also by making sure
>that every family has a Bible. It is especially necessary that listening
>to the word of God should become a life-giving encounter, in the ancient
>and ever valid tradition of lectio divina, which draws from the biblical
>text the living word which questions, directs and shapes our lives.


>IV  WITNESSES TO LOVE
>42. "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for
>one another" (Jn 13:35). If we have truly contemplated the face of Christ,
>dear Brothers and Sisters, our pastoral planning will necessarily be
>inspired by the "new commandment" which he gave us: "Love one another, as
>I have loved you" (Jn 13:34).
>This is the other important area in which there has to be commitment and
>planning on the part of the universal Church and the particular Churches:
>the domain of communion (koinonia), which embodies and reveals the very
>essence of the mystery of the Church. Communion is the fruit and
>demonstration of that love which springs from the heart of the Eternal
>Father and is poured out upon us through the Spirit which Jesus gives us
>(cf. Rom 5:5), to make us all "one heart and one soul" (Acts 4:32). It is
>in building this communion of love that the Church appears as "sacrament",
>as the "sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of the unity of
>the human race".26
>The Lord's words on this point are too precise for us to diminish their
>import. Many things are necessary for the Church's journey through
>history, not least in this new century; but WITHOUT CHARITY (AGAPE), ALL
>WILL BE IN VAIN.  It is again the Apostle Paul who in the hymn to love
>reminds us: even if we speak the tongues of men and of angels, and if we
>have faith "to move mountains", but are without love, all will come to
>"nothing" (cf. 1 Cor 13:2). Love is truly the "heart" of the Church, as
>was well understood by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, whom I proclaimed a
>Doctor of the Church precisely because she is an expert in the scientia
>amoris: "I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was
>aflame with Love. I understood that Love alone stirred the members of the
>Church to act... I understood that Love encompassed all vocations, that
>LOVE WAS EVERYTHING".27


>
>A SPIRITUALITY OF COMMUNION
>43. To make the Church the home and the school of communion: that is the
>great challenge facing us in the millennium which is now beginning, if we
>wish to be faithful to God's plan and respond to the world's deepest
yearnings.
>But what does this mean in practice? Here too, our thoughts could run
>immediately to the action to be undertaken, but that would not be the
>right impulse to follow. Before making practical plans, we need to promote
>a spirituality of communion, making it the guiding principle of education
>wherever individuals and Christians are formed, wherever ministers of the
>altar, consecrated persons, and pastoral workers are trained, wherever
>families and communities are being built up. A spirituality of communion
>indicates above all the heart's contemplation of the mystery of the
>Trinity dwelling in us, and whose light we must also be able to see
>shining on the face of the brothers and sisters around us. A spirituality
>of communion also means an ability to think of our brothers and sisters in
>faith within the profound unity of the Mystical Body, and therefore as
>"those who are a part of me". This makes us able to share their joys and
>sufferings, to sense their desires and attend to their needs, to offer
>them deep and genuine friendship. A spirituality of communion implies also
>the ability to SEE WHAT IS POSITIVE IN OTHERS, TO WELCOME IT AND PRIZE IT
>AS A GIFT FROM GOD: not only as a gift for the brother or sister who has
>received it directly, but also as a "GIFT FOR ME".  A spirituality of
>communion means, finally, to know how to "MAKE ROOM" FOR OUR BROTHERS AND
>SISTERS, bearing "each other's burdens" (Gal 6:2) and RESISTING THE
>SELFISH TEMPTATIONS WHICH CONSTANTLY BESET US AND PROVOKE COMPETITION,
>CAREERISIM, DISTRUST AND JEALOUSY. Let us have no illusions: unless we
>follow this spiritual path, external structures of communion will serve
>very little purpose. They would become mechanisms without a soul, "masks"
>of communion rather than its means of expression and growth.


>ECUMENICAL COMMITMENT
>48. And what should we say of the urgent task of fostering communion in
>the delicate area of ecumenism? Unhappily, as we cross the threshold of
>the new millennium, we take with us the sad heritage of the past. The
>Jubilee has offered some truly moving and prophetic signs, but there is
>still a long way to go.
>By fixing our gaze on Christ, the Great Jubilee has given us a more vivid
>sense of the Church as a mystery of unity. "I believe in the one Church":
>what we profess in the Creed has ITS ULTIMATE FOUNDATION IN CHRIST, IN
>WHOM THE CHURCH IS UNDIVIDED (cf. 1 Cor 1:11-13). As his Body, in the
>unity which is the gift of the Spirit, she is indivisible. The reality of
>division among the Church's children appears at the level of history, as
>the result of human weakness in the way we accept the gift which flows
>endlessly from Christ the Head to his Mystical Body. The prayer of Jesus
>in the Upper Room - "as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they
>also may be one in us" (Jn 17:21) - is both revelation and invocation. It
>reveals to us the unity of Christ with the Father as the wellspring of the
>Church's unity and as the gift which in him she will constantly receive
>until its mysterious fulfilment the end of time. This unity is concretely
>embodied in the Catholic Church, despite the human limitations of her
>members, AND IT IS AT WORK IN VARYING DEGREES IN ALL THE ELEMENTS OF
>HOLINESS AND TRUTH TO BE FOUND IN THE OTHER CHURCHES AND ECCLESISAL
>COMMUNITIES. As gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, THESE
>ELEMENTS LEAD THEM CONTINUOUSLY TOWARDS FULL UNITY.34
>Christ's prayer reminds us that this gift needs to be received and
>developed ever more profoundly. The invocation "ut unum sint" is, at one
>and the same time, a binding imperative, the strength that sustains us,
>and a salutary rebuke for our slowness and closed-heartedness. It is on
>Jesus's prayer and not on our own strength that we base the hope that even
>within history we shall be able to reach full and visible communion with
>all Christians.
>In the perspective of our renewed post-Jubilee pilgrimage, I look with
>great hope to the Eastern Churches, and I pray for a full return to that
>exchange of gifts which enriched the Church of the first millennium. May
>the memory of the time when the Church breathed with "both lungs" spur
>Christians of East and West to walk together in unity of faith and with
>respect for legitimate diversity, accepting and sustaining each other as
>members of the one Body of Christ.
>A similar commitment should lead to the fostering of ecumenical dialogue
>with our brothers and sisters belonging to the Anglican Communion AND THE
>ECCLESIAL COMMUNITIES BORN OF THE REFORMATION. Theological discussion on
>essential points of faith and Christian morality, cooperation in works of
>charity, and ABOVE ALL THE GREAT ECUMENISM OF HOLINESS WILL NOT FAIL, with
>God's help, to bring results. In the meantime we confidently continue our
>pilgrimage, longing for the time when, together with each and every one of
>Christ's followers, we shall be able to join wholeheartedly in singing:
>"How good and how pleasant it is, when brothers live in unity!" (Ps 133:1).

Here is the link for the above document, where it can be read uncut and in
full:

http://www.ecumenism.org/