Three Worcester churches celebrate Christian unity

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

WORCESTER – More than 30 years ago, Lauraine Laurence was one of those who signed a covenant between her Catholic parish, Blessed Sacrament, and Trinity Lutheran Church.
Sunday, after an ecumenical service at Blessed Sacrament, she pointed to a framed copy of that 1988 covenant hanging in the vestibule.
“My signature is on there,” she noted. “I was president of Blessed Sacrament’s parish council when the covenant was signed. … Their bishop was there, along with our bishop.”
Among the six people from Trinity at last Sunday’s ecumenical service was Edith Levin, said the Rev. Nathan D. Pipho, Trinity’s pastor. He said her brother-in-law, Robert Hill, had signed the covenant, and died last September “just as we were ... renewing” it.
The two churches had a wonderful covenant, Father Richard F. Trainor, Blessed Sacrament’s pastor, said at Sunday’s service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. They used material for the Week of Prayer observances, this year prepared by Christians in Malta, with the theme, “They showed us unusual kindness,” taken from Acts 27 and 28.
This international octave of prayer, which runs from Jan. 18-25, used to be a time of ecumenical get-togethers in various places, but they have dwindled.
“We ... didn’t do much for many, many years” with the covenant with Blessed Sacrament, said the Rev. Pipho, who came to Trinity in 2016.
The relationship was “quite ambitious” at the time the covenant was begun, and now the churches are trying “to see what makes sense for today,” he said.
Awhile ago Father Trainor had him over for lunch and showed him the covenant, he said. He told Father Trainor he didn’t know where Trinity’s copy was.
When Brian Ashmankas was serving at Blessed Sacrament as a seminarian last summer, he presented the Lutherans with a new copy of the covenant.
The Rev. Pipho said he and Mr. Ashmankas facilitated conversations about the covenant with parishioners in August.
On Sept. 16 Blessed Sacrament hosted a potluck for the two parishes and on Oct. 12 Blessed Sacrament members came to Trinity’s International Night, the Rev. Pipho said.
“People have gone back and forth in a spirit of covenant,” he said, adding that the parishes have also shared invitations to some of their other activities. And when the Taizé service that had been held at Blessed Sacrament was looking for a new space, it worked into their calendar and is now held at Trinity.
Also participating in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity service that drew more than two dozen people was the Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, priest-in-charge at All Saints, an Episcopal Church. He said Father Trainor sent him an invitation.
“When I first got here, he was the first clergy-person to reach out to me,” he said, adding that Father Trainor invited him to lunch after he came to All Saints one-and-a-half years ago.
“It’s encouraging to revive the dialog between our parishes as a model of how people can talk to each other, especially at a time when society is having such a hard time talking about differences,” the Rev. Poppe said.
There’s so much division in the world that it’s nice to have something like this that enables people to share prayers and songs, said Romeo Marquis, Blessed Sacrament’s faith formation facilitator. He said he thinks healing needs to start locally – in families and churches.
Frank Kartheiser, a Blessed Sacrament parishioner who headed the community organization Worcester Interfaith for years, said it was nice to celebrate the Week of Prayer and keep it going.
“Worcester was the heart of the ecumenical movement in the country” under Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan, head of the Diocese of Worcester during Vatican Council II, he said.
“We are about Christian unity,” Father Trainor said during Sunday’s service. “We have to lament … this division and separation among the Churches” which have a common baptism but are not at a common table.
But, he said, Christians should not stay in lamentation – they need to have “ecumenical creativity and longing in the communion of all saints.”
“May God, who began the good work in us, bring it to completion,” Father Trainor said.
Sister Laura Canali, a Xaverian Missionary Sister of Mary from Immaculate Conception Parish, said she learned about the service when stopping to pray at Blessed Sacrament.
She said she was so happy the Week of Prayer observance was held; she missed it after Assumption College stopped hosting it awhile back.
“In Italy we have many” such services, she said, adding that her congregation is based in Parma.
She said priests should push their people to attend such services, which are a very important voice for unity.