FIGHTER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY

AN English Catholic who chanced to visit the Church of St, Bruno in the Rue Pierre Dupont, Lyons, during the morning of March 27, would have found a large congregation gathered to pay tribute to a priest whose name will live in the minds and hearts of innumerable Christians, Requiem Mass was being
celebrated there for the repose of the soul of the Abbe Paul Couturier, founder of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This French priest, whose name is now known throughout the world, died in the very early hours of March
24 from an acute attack of angina. He was 70 years of age. For the past quarter of a century he had devoted himself with tireless energy to the cause of Christian unity.
He had been very ill for over a year, yet until the last and fatal attack
came on he still continued to labour for the unity of Christians, even though compelled to rest for 11 hours out of the 24.
Cardinal Gerlier, Archbishop of Lyons, visited the humble apartment in which the Abbe died, and presided in person at the funeral. Before the absolutions, the Cardinal' paid a
moving tribute to this venerable
apostle. He said that this was the first occasion that he had presided
at the Requiem for one of his priests,
but that he did so to express his admiration, affection and respect to
him who will long be remembered as the outstanding apostle of Christian unity in our own times. One of the great aspirations of the modern world—so His Eminence re
marked—is the construction, of the human community. Nowhere is this felt more intensely than on the re
ligious plane. There is no evangelical command more imperious. The great scandal of the modern world is in the fact that Christians are divided.
Nostalgia
ALL who love Christ and, for the love of Christ, love their brethren have a nostalgia for Christian unity such as He willed it not a unity founded on sentiment or one obtained by equivocation, but one found in truth and by loyalty to the truth. The Cardinal said that the Abbe had brought great honour to the archdiocese, and was a loyal servant of the Church who mourned for him and thanked him through the voice of the Archbishop of Lyons. His Eminence added that the work for unity will continue. Did not the Sovereign Pontiff express only recently his longing to see one day the union of our separated brethren such as Christ wills?
The Abbe Paul Couturier first became interested in the cause of Christian unity in the late twenties when many orthodox Christians found refuge from persecution in France. It was this contact with his separated brethren, most of them from Russia, which impressed on him the scandal of disunity and led him to contacts with French Protestants and Anglicans of all schools of thought. His relations with non-Catholics fired him with an ever-increasing zeal for the ending of all the separations and divisions between Christians. To this end he founded the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity or, more accurately, gave a wider basis to the already existing Church Unity Octave.
Founders
THIS week of prayer had been I founded in 1908 by two Anglican clergymen, the Rev, Paul James Watson, founder of the Society of the Atonement in the United States, and the Rev. Spencer Jones, Rector of Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Gloucestershire.
The Society of the Atonement made its submission to Rome in 1911. From the first, the purpose of the Church Unity Octave was to work and pray for the restoration to full communion with the Holy See of all Christians separated from it. Because of this the octave's observance was mainly limited to members of the Anglican Communion, both in North America and in Great Britain, who had a "Papalist" outlook and who shared the opinions of its two founders. But Catholics took, and have taken, an increasing part in it.
While fully recognising the vital importance of the octave as a witness to the true centre of unity, the Abbe Couturier felt the urgent need of inviting all Christians everyw!:vre to join at a fixed time in our Lord's own prayer, "in ortmes unum situ." His object was to kindle a great fire of intercession, a fire which should cause all Christians to burn with shame and grief at the scandal of disunity, and labour to end it. h was his conviction that unity is primarily a matter of the spiritual life. When all who confess the Divinity of Christ live a fully Christian life and approach others separated from them in the Spirit of Christ, then the day desired by His Holiness will be much nearer than it seems to he now,
The spirit of this week of prayer is to be found in these words of the Abbe which appear in a pamphlet published in Lyons before the second World War:
'Lord, under the intolerable burden of this distress of separated Chri.s•endom my heart faints. 1 trust in Thee Who hast conquered the world. It is the property of love to produce a reckless trust in that which one loves, My trust in Thee is boundless, and rightly so since Thou art Almighty, It Caws me on Thy heart wherein I find Thy prayer : 'Father, may they be one; that the world may know that Thou didst send me. Father. may they be made perfect in one.' My sinner's prayer is Thine Own prayer. Thy prayer is my only comfort."
The Needs
IT was Paul Couturier's special genius to see that what was needed to kindle an immense fire of prayer for Christian unity was a rallying point where all could meet without being influenced by _their historical past or by prejudices about, or irrational suspicions of, their separated brethren. By really making their own the prayer of C. rist. Christians can flow together into His heart, and in that heart find the right way to approach one another.
To pray Christ's own prayer for unity is in no sort of way to ignore or lessen dogmatic differences, but it is an essential condition of their removal. For, as the Abbe loved to say, "ex igne Lux"—light comes from fire, The fire of charity must burn in all Christians before unity in truth can be hoped for. Since its inception, the week of prayer, both on the Continent of Europe and in other parts of the world, has increased steadily in its appeal and influence. But only when its goal has been attained will the founder's contribution to Christian unity he seen in all its force, Meanwhile, Paul Couturier will remain to those who knew him an abiding example of how Catholics should approach their non-Catholic brethren and show them that the fullest loyalty to the Church is never incompatible with charity and courtesy to those visibly separated from the Body of Christ. May we dare to hope that the Abbe's own offering of his life for unity and all he suffered for it will hasten the realisation of the Holy Father's wish and inspire s:,silar sacrificial offerings amongst all Christians.