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Methodist Leslie Cram is an unmarried member of the Association of Interchurch Families. In summer 1997 he travelled with an ecumenical party of pilgrims from Rome to northern Ireland to commemorate the arrival of St Augustine in England and the death of St Columba, both of which happened in 597. Leslie asked that one of the four communities he represented as a pilgrim should be AIF. He writes: "The Association of Interchurch Families is of first importance to me in explaining my position in the church. All major denominations are my parents; God has blessed me through them all. Those to whom I feel closest are the children of interchurch couples who ask for double belonging. ... It was so often a point of starting a conversation and I also felt I was travelling under my true colours and not hiding my wider belonging. I took my two passports as well (I hold both British and Canadian citizenship) which I used from time to time to parallel how I feel I belong in the church. "
A sense of wider ecclesial belonging within a concrete community (such as that found in travelling together on pilgrimage) can intensify - as for interchurch children a sense of need for eucharistic sharing, In a report for AIF, from which we give extracts below, Leslie focused on the pilgrims travelling, eating, sleeping, praying, talking, relaxing, living together in community. He writes:
In all our variety I felt a oneness in that all belonged more in the united church of the future than in the present separated denominations. The exception where we did not live as a community was at the Table of the Lord. Some memories:
Assisi, Sunday: at midday mass in Latin and Italian a whispered message is passed along that we can receive communion, and nearly all go forward. The mass ends; the choir stands to give, in best Italian, the Hallelujah Chorus. We British stand too, with tears and jubilation. Applause at the end, and I exchange the "thumbs up" sign with a gentleman in the back row of the choir.
Cannes, the Anglican church - a eucharist before we sail out to the site of the late Roman monastery on the nearby island where Augustine's party is said to have halted. We all extend our hands and arms in sharing the Peace. Some, but not all, Roman Catholics join with their Anglican and Protestant brothers and sisters in receiving the elements.
Taize, 7.30 in the morning, the crypt, It is a week predominantly of German young people and the Roman Catholic mass is in that language. Not all of us are here, but a good representation of both Catholics and Protestants. We are a community in welcoming all around us in the Peace. Certainly some Protestants did not receive, but delighted in being there.
Taize, an hour later, the first of the three times of prayer every day. The brothers, of various denominations, gather with their visitors. Young people sit or kneel in the soft light, the quiet and the gentle singing. Bread blessed at the earlier mass is available to all. This sharing of blessed bread is the nearest the Brothers experience to being one at the eucharist.
The Romanesque village church at Taize, an Anglican eucharist for our coach party in the afternoon. Perhaps half of us are here; some Roman Catholics stay at the back while their Anglican and Protestant fellows go forward to receive.
Boulogne, the yard at the back of the seamen's hostel where we are staying overnight, a Methodist service of Holy Communion in celebration of Wesley day. We stand in a circle after prayers and hymns and give the bread and wine to one another. All there receive, but not all attend.
Hardelot, near Boulogne, from where Augustine's party is said to have embarked for Kent, Sunday morning, the Roman Catholic church, where there is a special welcome to us pilgrims at mass. We share the Peace among us and with those in the church. There is no special invitation and Protestants sit while their brothers and sisters receive the elements.
Chester Cathedral, Sunday, the Roman Catholic priest in our coach uses a side chapel to say mass so that the obligation can be fulfilled.
Lancaster, a sunlit afternoon on the hilltop where the Priory church adjoins the castle. The coach chaplain offers an Anglican eucharist; the Roman Catholic priest says it is his turn to experience the pain of separation, and goes forward for a blessing. Before the separation we are united in the Peace.
We often discussed the eucharist
In Florence we talked of ecumenical groups and of experiencing a community that feels the need to be drawn into one by all receiving communion. On the French border, before our midday prayers under the pines at a service station, a few Protestant pilgrims talked of how hard it is to understand the doctrine of the Real Presence when it is explained in the traditional terms of substance and accidents, technical terms of mediaeval science. At Taize some of us found our eyes meeting across the Protestant/Roman Catholic divide with a shared urgency for full communion. We knew the denominational (tribal or ?ethnic) divisions in various places in Europe. If we allow ourselves to be separated at the Table of the Lord we also allow the killings to continue elsewhere. .
One evening before reaching Canterbury, after chatting uninhibitedly with a Roman Catholic, I felt I was expected to listen without responding while the Real Presence was explained to me, a Presence only able to happen through the succession of laying on of hands from Christ. Later I had the same experience with another pilgrim. I attempted to respond with my experience of looking for the presence of God in all people, the Quaker view of the equal sanctity of every meal.
In Christ the Cornerstone ecumenical church in Milton Keynes we were led in meditation to consider the divided world and God's invitation to all to be one at his Table. I was moved to ask for interchurch families to be remembered in their separation at this Table.
At Whithorn, walking along the beach to St Ninian's cave, I shared with another pilgrim my concern that it was as if this separation at the Lord's Table was agreed to be ignored by those arranging the pilgrimage. From Canterbury to Derry, outside every cathedral we entered, Protestants from Northern Ireland objected to our association with St Augustine. What did their open separation from us have to say to our unacknowledged internal separation?
Let us not use traditional theologies of the presence of Christ in the eucharist as an excuse for not being one at the Table of the Lord. Interchurch families, and others who feel a double belonging, are as well placed as any to contribute to a new unified understanding.
6.1.14
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Published by the Association of Interchurch Families, London
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