Susan Gately
Bishop John McDowell A scripture scholar tells Susan Gately about her journey from Protestantism to the Catholic Church
A woman who started life as a Reformed Presbyterian “with a Baptist mother” and followed three of her family into the Catholic Church, gave the keynote address at the inaugural meeting for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Dr Jessie Rogers [pictured], originally from South Africa, lectures in Scripture at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. On Thursday, January 18, she spoke on the theme of the 2018 Octave, ‘That all may be free’, taken from the ‘Song of the Sea’ in Exodus.
Addressing the service at Johnstown church in Dublin, Dr Rogers told members of 10 Christian faith traditions, including the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, and the Church of Ireland Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dr William Morton, that terrifying things were being said in Europe and in the United States, suggesting that “our Christian heritage is only protected when we exclude the other, as if God loves us and not them. There is so much rhetoric about ‘walls’. But when we build a wall against the vulnerable we will discover that it is God we have shut out.”
We misunderstand the ‘escape from captivity’ story, continued Dr Rogers, when we “replicate the oppressive system of Pharaoh, where the wealth and security of the few is secured at the cost of the more vulnerable, and yet still believe that God is on our side. The question is not: ‘is God on my side?’ but “am I on God’s?”
“It is when we reach out beyond our comfort zone, when we work side by side, joining in God’s work in the world, that we are drawn closer together,” she said.
Dr Rogers came to Ireland with her family 10 years ago to work in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick. At the time they were all dedicated Baptists. Her youngest daughter, was first to want to become a Catholic when her class in the local primary school were getting ready for First Holy Communion.
Communion
“My eldest daughter, who was 15 at the time, said ‘I’d like to [be Catholic] as well’,” she told The Irish Catholic. Prof. Eamonn Conway from Mary Immaculate College received the girls, and gave them Holy Communion and confirmed the elder daughter. “He did a wonderful service for us,” recalled Dr Rogers. “Then a few years later my husband decided and I followed 18 months ago.”
At that time, she was working at Maynooth. “I had a sense that that was what the Lord was inviting me to do. I think if I had felt any pressure, there’s enough of a Protestant in me [to reject it] but as it was I felt very welcomed, I had a sense of belonging.”
The popularity of the Week of Prayer for Christian unity has been waning for years. In a message commending the week to his diocese, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Clogher, Bishop John McDowell admitted “its popularity” had “fallen off” but commended the week saying it had “the enormous advantage of being recognised as a time of prayer and reflection throughout the Christian West and beyond”.
“The week helps us to re–focus on our vocation to be reconcilers and peace–makers within the Church and in the world,” said Bishop McDowell, Chair of the Church of Ireland Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue.
Agreeing that the material produced for the Octave of Unity (available from www. ctbi.org.uk) was “powerful”, Dr Rogers said it was perhaps a “missed opportunity”.
“You can’t pray with somebody and not discover those bonds that join you together as part of the body of Christ,” she said. “It would be wonderful if there was more take up.”
“When Jesus talks of the kingdom of God – it comes as a little bit of yeast, a seed,” she continued. “So, I would say, it [week of prayer] is not a waste of time but if it could be better publicised it could do even more good.”
Ecumenism should be “united in vision and in purpose” said the scholar. “I think more and more we are finding it easier to recognise Christ in each other and so it’s not difficult to work together.”
Referendum
Agreeing there was a “huge” role for the Churches to work together on social issues, like the abortion referendum, she said the scandal was “when the body of Christ is seen to be divided”.
“When we work together I’d like people to think of ‘Christianity’ in the first place, and not ‘oh are you [from] this or that camp?’ Pope Francis speaks a lot about unity in diversity which is not uniformity and when it comes to working together on social issues that’s it.”
Wednesday saw one of the final events of the Week of Prayer at St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Armagh. Fr Kieran McDermott, Administrator of the Pro Cathedral in Dublin, gave the main address at the ecumenical prayer service.