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A few days ago (March 26) the new Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally (installed the day before on the Feast of the Annunciation) and the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Christian Unity met together for prayer and conversation.

This formal meeting marked the sixtieth anniversary of the first formal meeting of a pope and the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury in four hundred years. On that 23 March 1966 occasion Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI met in Rome and signed the Common Declaration which opens:

In this city of Rome, from which Saint Augustine was sent by Saint Gregory to England and there founded the cathedral see of Canterbury, towards which the eyes of all Anglicans now turn as the centre of their Christian Communion, His Holiness Pope Paul VI and His Grace Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, representing the Anglican Communion, have met to exchange fraternal greetings.

Their joint Declaration at this link was a remarkable document dissolving the often petty tensions which had marked, even scarred, the relationship between God’s Churches.

The Declaration heralded a fresh relationship and new era of dialogue towards unity.

In perhaps the most significant moment of the 1966 encounter between these two bishops Paul VI slipped his own episcopal ring onto the finger of Michael Ramsey.

This moment was a fruit of the growing relationship between Anglicans and Catholics across the world, within neighbourhoods and in families.

In 1960 the then Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher had visited Pope John XXIII in Rome and the two had a fruitful conversation about the upcoming Second Vatican Council. This informal and friendly meeting paved the way not only for the 1966 moment but (equally significantly) for communities where quality relationships were already real and unifying across denominational divides.

Last week the Cardinal Koch brought greetings to Archbishop Sarah from Pope Leo sending…

“…prayerful greetings to Your Grace on the occasion of your Installation as Archbishop of Canterbury. I know that the office for which you have been chosen is a weighty one, with responsibilities not only in the Diocese of Canterbury, but throughout the Church of England as well as the Anglican Communion as a whole. Moreover, you are commencing these duties at a challenging moment in the history of the Anglican family. In asking the Lord to strengthen you with the gift of wisdom, I pray that you may be guided by the Holy Spirit in serving your communities, and draw inspiration from the example of Mary, the Mother of God.”

Pope Leo knows already from his experience that the responsibility of leadership in the Catholic Church is just as challenging.

We together, Anglican and Catholic are in the same boat.

In the past we may have thought that the unity for which Christ prays “that they may be one” would be the result of one Church joining the other. Now we realise that if we move together, in friendship and dialogue, a new family of faith will emerge.

Already we see this in extraordinarily inspiring Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) agreements revealing and celebrating substantial agreement on Eucharist (The Windsor Statement 1971), Church Authority (The Gift of Authority1999), and Mary: (Grace and Hope in Christ 2005)

Let us pray in the prayer that Archbishop Sarah prayed during her Annunciation Installation sermon last week, a prayer written by young people for her (walking) pilgrimage to Canterbury earlier this month:

Strengthen us in faith,
Grant us a heart like Christ’s,
gentle, humble, and devoted to the truth,
So that we may share the Gospel with joy.

Note the US, US, WE, language of the prayer, yes, praying together as Anglicans across the Communion, but also as brother and sister Anglican and Catholic together since (as Leo reflects in his greeting):

“… we have continued to walk together, because differences ‘cannot prevent us from recognising one another as brothers and sisters in Christ by reason of our common baptism’. For my part, I firmly believe that we need to continue to dialogue in truth and love, for it is only in truth and love that we come to know together the grace, mercy and peace of God and thus can offer these precious gifts to the world.”

I’m reminded of the homily of Pope John Paul II at the Ecumenical gathering in Christchurch, 24 November 1986. On that occasion the pope reflected:

“Here in New Zealand you have experienced the strength of the commitment which the Catholic Church brings to the ecumenical movement, a commitment which I assure you is irreversible”. 

And so again we pray:

Strengthen us in faith,
Grant us a heart like Christ’s,
gentle, humble, and devoted to the truth,
So that we may share the Gospel with joy