The People of St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church send Greetings and congratulate the Members of the First Baptist Church, our neighbors, on the occasion of their eightieth Anniversary and the dedication of their new Auditorium this Sunday.
We are one with you in our common humanity, men and women together. We are fellow Americans, living together in Oklahoma and McCurtain County. Then we are one in the greater and more significant unity of our faith that each and all us are created by God because He loved us, and with a divine purpose. Then in an even higher level, we are one with you in our faith in the Lord Jesus. His is the Name, His the power and the Grace in which we hope to gain our salvation and please our Father.
We pray that the full meaning, power, and effect of the prayer of Jesus, given in the presence of His disciples at the Last Supper, the evening before He died for us, would soon be realized among us: " That all may be one, as Thou, Father, in me, and I in Thee, that the world may believe that you sent Me."
When I came across this clipping in one of my files yesterday afternoon I could not remember how long it had been since I last saw it but I imagined it must have been about fifteen years. I decided to make it a blog because I saw it as an example of the ecumenical attitude and experience the Second VaticanCouncil invited and urged all of us to have in our relationships with fellow Christian believers who for the time being are not in full communion with us nor one another. Without watering down our own faith or denigrating the faith experience of those who differ with us in matters of faith we can and should be able to recognize the presence of God in them and be thankful for that presence with hope we may live what we believe, so well, that in God's time we can sit down with one anther and ernestly and sincerely seek and work together for the unity for which Jesus prayed.
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