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What follows is a brief testimony given at Torre Pellice in July 1999 by one of the representatives of AIF England. Patricia is a Roman Catholic married to an Anglican.
For us, being a Domestic Church does not mean saying prayers together, it is simply living together in love. We share our food, we share our lives. Everything we do, everything we say is a prayer because we know we have the Lord present among us. "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them." We are like a very small Taizé and we would like to be accorded the same respect and the same eucharistic privileges as larger ecumenical communities.
We have never disagreed with each other on religious matters – we want the same things. We share our Christian faith, but we are each loyal to the churches we were brought up in.
To me, being a member of a church is not to be a member of a club, it is to be a member of a family. When you marry another person, you become part of their family too, but you don’t leave your own family. Our children belong to both my husband’s family and mine. They feel they belong to my husband’s church and mine. To tell them they cannot receive communion is like telling them they can’t eat when they go to Nanny’s house.
"If you do not change and become like little children you will not enter the kingdom of heave." (Matt.18:3) I believe that if we listen to our children and follow their example we will soon find the way to Christian unity. They are not cluttered with history, theology and the prejudices that come from them. They know Jesus, they love him and they try to do as he would.
A few weeks ago my 8-year old son came into the kitchen while I was preparing Sunday lunch. I asked him about the TV programme he had been watching. He said it was a cartoon about the Last Supper. When Jesus said: "This is my body, this is my blood", Matthew asked: "What do you mean?" Jesus replied: "Mmmm". Matthew persisted: "Do you mean literally or metaphorically?" Jesus replied: "Mmmm". "Lord, don’t you understand that there will be war, people will die, the church will divide if you don’t say what you mean?" "Mmmm."
I asked my son what he thought. He replied: "Maybe Jesus was saying the questions don’t matter much, the important thing is that we receive the eucharist because he said that when we do this, he will be inside us."
Patricia
Published by the Association of Interchurch Families, England
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Vol 8.1.3
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