Dialogue

Friends:

We speak frequently these days of dialogue.
The other day I was rereading Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Ut Unum Sint.
Paragraphs 28-30 concern themselves with dialogue.

This time through I noticed that:

1. He notes that “Dialogue is not simply an exchange of ideas. In some way it is always an ‘exchange of gifts.'”

2. “When undertaking dialogue, each side must presuppose in the other a desire for reconciliation, for unity in truth.”

I think that in working together we must be open to and search for the the truth the other brings to us–and seek to grasp it in depth. This certainly is true in the ecumenical exchanges in the Consortium.

Peace,
John