The community of the St. Bonaventure International College in Rome (Seraphicum), in communion with the universal Church, again this year conducted a meeting to pray for Christian unity.
It’s a yearly tradition for the community of friars of the Seraphicum to come together for a moment of prayer during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The event was inspired by the invitation of the Church and the spirituality of our seraphic father St. Francis, who always worked for fraternity and unity.
This event has also provided opportunity for spiritual formation for the friars of the Seraphicum who come from different cultures and countries around the world. Encouraged by the spirituality of the founder, the participants met to learn more about other Christian denominations and to pray for Christian unity.
On the third Sunday of Ordinary Time this year, during Evening Prayer, the community welcomed a delegation from the Armenian Apostolic Church from the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia [Holy See of Cilicia].
The Evening Prayer liturgy took place in the San Bonaventura chapel. After singing the Psalms together with the confreres of our sister church, the Reverend Vartabed Bsag TEPIRJIAN, Pastor of the Armenian community in Rome and Naples, proposed a moment of reflection.
Father Vartabed Bsag then gave a lecture on the concept of love incarnated in our Lord Jesus Christ, and presented a part of the Armenian liturgy that contains a hymn by St. Nersess Shnorhali (St. Nerses the Gracious), a 12th century Armenian saint. The hymn invites the Christian community to be reborn with the Lord in his mystery of incarnate love. Father Vartabed Bsag explained that the hymn highlighted the Christian’s rebirth in Love as the source of unity in diversity. Unity comes from that source of Love, which shows us the way to follow every Christian’s commandment to love God and one’s neighbor. It is a love that impels us as Christians to embrace our neighbor who is our brother, as we read in the different testimonies of the saints of the East and West. Father Vartabed Bsag, drew upon letters that St. Nerses wrote to the Patriarch of the Byzantine Church in the 12th century. The letters revealed that St. Nerses was similar to St. Francis in the West, in that, by promoting fraternity, St. Nerses left a great testimony that was also visible during the prayer service on this occasion.
After the lecture by Father Vartabed Bsag, the liturgy continued with prayer for the unity of Christians as a testimony of the love of the Lord. There was also prayer for peace in the world, especially where people are suffering from war and injustice, particularly in Armenia, Artsakh, Ukraine and the Holy Land.
After the liturgy, there was an agape meal and further discussion during which Friar Adam MĄCZKA, Rector and Guardian of the Seraphicum, explained the activities of the college and the mission of the Conventual Franciscans to our guests, namely, Father Vartabet Avedik der GARABEDIAN and Father Vartabed Keork KARAGOZIAN, both from the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia.
Friar André M. RAHBAR
