Observing Vatican II

Extract

Sometimes the Holy Spirit surprises the Church. Some small decision or simple gesture turns out to be much more significant than many official pronouncements from high authority. We are pulled forward into a quite new situation by a seemingly inadequate cause. In retrospect we wonder at the modest beginnings of this new venture. But then why should the Spirit not move with a gentleness characteristic of God's grace?

This, I would suggest, is what happened when Pope John decided to invite official delegate observers from other churches to attend the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. (It was not unnoticed that the invitations were extended to churches and not just to individuals, itself an act of considerable ecumenical importance.) One wonders what Pope John himself thought this gesture would lead to. It is no secret that his decision was criticized and opposed. All that we can suppose is that he persisted in it, despite the criticism and anxiety it aroused, simply from the warmth and fulness of his heart. It was a simple yet profound gesture which, perhaps for that reason, commended itself more to the Spirit than to men. And if there was opposition in Rome, there was a strong reluctance in some Christian communions to take it at its face value, an institutional suspicion that it might be some kind of snare. But the gesture was made, and observers are now a firm part of that vast and complicated reality which is Vatican II.