More than 5000 Christians gathered at the Sydney Opera House for the OneSydney concert, turning the secular, historic site into a place of prayer on 14 June.
Split into a matinee and an evening session, this ecumenical event provided participants with a showcase of a plethora of Christian creative works such as traditional and contemporary Christian music, opera, visual and performance art.
The star-studded list of performers from overseas and locally included Catholic singer-songwriters Matt Maher and Fr Rob Galea, along with other artists Dami Im, Bella Taylor Smith, Budjerah and Tarryn Stokes.
Over four hours a number of well-known speakers also shared their dreams and insights on Christian unity.
They included the Scripture scholar Dr Mary Healy, one of the first women appointed by Pope Francis in 2014 to the Pontifical Biblical Commission.
“The fact that we are not in unity is a scandal to the world,” she said.
“We are children of divorce and we don’t know what normal looks like. You can’t put a Band-Aid on a gaping traumatic wound, but the good news is that God is doing something new in our time, right here, right now.
“And he is stirring up a holy dissatisfaction in the whole body of Christ around the world, stirring up this thirst and this sense that polite coexistence is not good enough.”
Event director Philip Ryall told The Catholic Weekly the concert was “a seed planted by God” at the age of 13.
“As an altar boy Catholic, I was thrown into a situation where I came into an awareness of the beauty of other churches, and that led me to a personal relationship with Jesus.
“For a while, that messed with my heart, and I’m glad it did. It caused me to begin to ponder and ask the question of why is there this scandal of division that is so hard to solve? What can I do to build bridges?”
As Ryall’s interior life and calling to ecumenism matured over the years, he realised risk-taking is essential to the Christian life. He said the OneSydney concept had been a leap of faith.
“I think as you get older, you learn to recognise the pattern of the importance of taking risks as Christians. When we say goodbye to people as Christians, we shouldn’t be saying ‘take care’, we should be saying ‘take risk’.”
“Then I started to imagine, ‘Why couldn’t we do that [ONEsydney] under the Opera House? And so I stepped out in faith”, he said.
Squeezing his wife’s hand out of disbelief as he witnessed his dreams turn to reality in real time, he was moved to tears.
“So many times backstage, I was watching the artists one by one [and could see] they were just feeling the grace, and I was just in tears because these were dreams that I’d thought of, and I could see them happening on stage.
“I realised they weren’t my dreams, they were God’s dreams. And if they’re God’s dreams, then they’re going to carry this great anointing.
“One act after another, after another was messing with people’s hearts, turning the right way up what was upside down.”
When asked how this event will affect Christian unity in Sydney, Ryall said the answer “is up to every one of the 5012 people in the room.”
“We need forerunners in the city, people who are going to go first and love, go first and forgive. People who are going to humble themselves first.
“We need leaders to show us the way of humility, and that will cause others to follow.
“We seek first the kingdom of God together in our diversity, and then trust that all these other things [in the pursuit of unity], and there’s going to be many, will be added to us as well.”
