The Diocesan Ecumenical Com-mission has organised a talk by Paul and Mary Gateshill from the UK, who shared their lifelong experience of a living ecumenism.

The talk focused on the life of a family where the husband is a practising Anglican and the wife and two children Catholics.

The couple come from different backgrounds but from the very start had a deep respect for the other’s Christian tradition. Mary and Paul did not hide the pain they have felt throughout the years when they could not participate fully in each other’s church services.

Mary works at the Focolare Ecumenical Centre in London and both Paul and Mary are on the editorial committee of New City Magazine, the English magazine of the Focolare Movement, which addresses ecumenical issues.

They referred to ARCIC, the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, the key word of which is the Greek word ‘koinonia’, communion.

“Communion is a way, a new approach to ecumenism, because it doesn’t start from what divides us but from what is the communion between us, based on baptism and on scripture,” the couple said.