Pilgrim's Notebook:
Comments on Unity, Peace and the Eucharist
1. Facing the Reality!
“Division among Christians openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalises the world and damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the Gospel to every creature"
(Vatican Council Decree on Ecumenism paragraph 1).
2. The Bond of Peace
In the early centuries at the Bishop's Eucharist in the Church of Rome there was a custom of breaking off part of the consecrated bread before communion. Deacons then took the broken off pieces to congregations outside the city and further afield. 
During their Eucharist some bread from the Bishop's Eucharist was dropped into the consecrated wine. A trace of this ritual survives in the liturgy today. After the "Our Father" the priest breaks off a small part from the consecrated Bread and drops it into the Chalice.
The original ritual signified the bond of unity in the local Church of Rome. To-day we signify a similar reality by sending "unity pilgrims" from Clonard to congregations separated from us. By doing so we end the centuries-old alienation from one another on the Lord's Day. And we pray the Lord of History to bless and grow the seeds of friendship which our "unity pilgrims" plant.
Each of us receives and gives in our own unique way on the "unity pilgrimage".In each visit we pray that we may be blessed and bless!
3. Time to be a Community of Friends!
"We are not to blame for what has gone before us.
Those who passed on the fractured tradition acted in good faith. But we can have no excuse if we pass on a divided Church to the generations coming after us.
The time has come to cast off sectarian religion and become a community of friends".
4. On earth we must first love!
" Theology is rather a divine life than a divine knowledge.
In heaven, indeed, we shall first see and then love;
but here on earth we must first love, and love will open our eyes as well as our hearts, and we shall see and then perceive and understand."
(Jeremy Taylor, Church of Ireland Bishop of Down and Dromore in a lecture at Trinity College, Dublin, in the 1660s).
5. Making room for the Holy Spirit
"The only way out of the violence is through dialogue with one another. Humanly speaking it's impossible; but dialogue makes room for the Holy Spirit to work in the whole situation"
(Fr Alec Reid September 1983).
6. Bigness of heart, our only hope!
The aunt of an IRA man who had just been killed in Gibralter
said to the Methodist minister Rev. Sam Burch and Fr Gerry Reynolds as they called to see the bereaved family:
"It's only the bigness of heart that enables you, Sam,
to come in here and share our pain that will free us
from the conflict in which we are so tightly caught".
The Holy Spirit enables us to share the other side's pain!
7. The Way to Peace!
"There can be no peace without justice and no justice without forgiveness".
Pope John Paul 2.
8. The treasure of the Eucharist
“The treasure of the Eucharist, which the Lord places before us, impels us towards the goal of full sharing with our brothers and sisters to whom we are joined by our common Baptism.
But if this treasure is not to be squandered, we need to respect the demands which derive from its being the sacrament of communion in faith and in apostolic succession".
Pope John Paul 2 on Holy Thursday 2003.
9. Sharing in the Eucharist
"While it is never legitimate to concelebrate in the absence of full communion, the same is not true with respect to the administration of the Eucharist,under special circumstances,
to individuals belonging to Churches or Ecclesial Communities
not in full communion with the Catholic Church.
In this case, in fact, the intention is to meet a grave spiritual need for the eternal salvation of an individual believer,
not to bring about an inter-communion which remains impossible until the visible bonds of ecclesial communion are fully re-established".
Pope John Paul 2 on Holy Thursday 2003.
