Book Review: No Turning Back: The Future of Ecumenism

Abstract

No Turning Back: The Future of Ecumenism. By Margaret O'Gara. Edited by Michael Vertin. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2014. xxvi + 253 pp. $29.95 (paper).This collection of essays is posthumous testament to Margaret O'Gara's commitment to ecumenism. O'Gara planned this volume as a sequel to her earlier work, The Ecumenical Gift Exchange (1998), and chose many of the essays prior to her passing. Edited by Michael Vertin, her spouse and colleague at St. Michael's College, Toronto, the essays range addresses at ecumenical gatherings to scholarly articles, with a mixture of previously published and newly available work.The volume is divided into two sections. The first intends a broad audience, and introduces the work of ecumenism through the lens of O'Gara's personal experience. In clear, accessible writing, she portrays ecumenical dialogue as a process of transformation rooted in relationships. For example, O'Gara describes the importance of friendship among dialogue partners, which establishes a context of collaboration rather than competition, provides a pathway for insight into another's perspective, and helps to sustain participants in their dialogue: working in ecumenism share the same poignant experience of love for their own church traditions and restlessness within them, a cognitive and affective dissonance peculiar to ecumenists. Friends diverse church communions offer one another intellectual and emotional hospitality on the journey toward full (pp. 35-36). Ecumenism is also envisioned as an ascetical practice involving occasional fasting from celebrations of the eucharist when not in full communion with the presider, careful study that only gradually yields understanding, painful review of the trespasses committed and experienced by one's own communion, and awareness that one's labors are feared or suspected by others within one's communion (p. 35).O'Gara provides insight into the process of ecumenical dialogue as a spiritual endeavor shaped by prayer. She writes: Listening to the prayers of others is a bit like listening to other languages, and of course sometimes we begin to learn the language of our ecumenical partners as well-we learn a second language-and the ear of our heart is opened (pp. 24-25). Learning the language of one another's prayers is an entree to receiving and joining in the richness of doxology, which O'Gara finds is essential to the shared discovery of truth. Conversion of hearing through prayer is complemented by new vision through memory: When the historical memoiy of Christians is purified a new vision of oneself and the other church traditions emerges, dialogue becomes an experience not just of information but of transformation, of conversion (p. …