By Mary Frances McCarthy
Herald Staff Writer
(From the issue of 1/29/04)

More than 100 Lutherans, Episcopalians and Catholics gathered at St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Springfield last week to escape the cold January night, embrace each other in their commonalities and pray together for Christian unity. Instead of sitting at home watching the State of the Union address, these Christians were at church praying for improvement in the state of relations between Christians.

"In my lifetime we have defined ourselves as Christians by what we do different from everyone else," Lutheran Bishop Theodore F. Schneider said in his homily. "When we begin to build our walls of difference, we forget that through Christ we all have access to God."

Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde presided at the celebration. Bishop Schneider of the Metropolitan Synod, Washington, D.C., delivered the homily, and Suffragan Bishop David Colin Jones of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia gave the closing remarks. Father Paul deLadurantaye, temporary administrator of St. Bernadette, and Msgr. Roy Cosby, from the diocesan Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs Commission also participated. The choir from St. Bernadette Parish provided music for the service.

In his welcoming address, Bishop Loverde explained that it is an "apostolic duty to foster Christian unity."

Bishop Schneider echoed these sentiments in his homily and said, "From the day he arrived in the diocese we have known the conviction with which Bishop Loverde works [toward ecumenism]."

The theme of this year’s service was from the Gospel of John: "My peace I give you … not as the world gives, let not your hearts be troubled," a theme rather fitting for this time in history.

Bishop Schneider tied peace to unity by looking at history, and those who have fought for peace. "Peace — healing peace — everybody uses the word," he said. To define peace, he quoted Patrick Henry, Martin Luther King Jr., and other historical figures.

"A negative peace, which is the absence of tension, is less to be cherished than the positive peace, which is the presence of justice," King said in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

King and St. Paul both wrote of peace from within the walls of a jail. Bishop Schneider explained that there will be no peace as long as there are walls, real or imagined.

The bishop said he was there when the Berlin Wall fell. "I chiseled chunks out of the hated wall," he said. "I stood there with a West German who watched me chisel chunks and wept."

Of the walls being built in the Middle East, the bishop said, "The wall will heighten resentment and anger and relentlessness. It will not show us the things that make for peace."

As St. Paul said so many centuries ago, Christ is the solution. "With his own flesh [Christ] tears down the walls," Bishop Schneider said. "Paul believed in his heart that Christ died for us all."