Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

2023 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - January 18 – 25

Theme: Do good; seek justice

A sudden reversal -  a young mother, a PSW in Toronto, was nearly separated from her child, until she went public about her possible deportation and garnered a multitude of supporters. Today, January 7, Faftumah Najjuma has won her right for permanent residency in Canada. Such good news not only for this little family but for the energy rallying for systemic change.

Do good; seek justice - These basic values and actions are essential in all human relationships.

Christians who may have signed Faftumah’s petition or stood strong with her cause can’t be identified in the crowd or on the petition. But standing with and seeking justice are essential to the gospel of Jesus.

“standing with and seeking justice are essential to the gospel of Jesus. ”

From January 18 – 25 we will be praying for Christian unity and reflecting on the theme: Do good; seek justice. We may routinely align with a specific faith community, sometimes follow different liturgical calendars, or find our preference in different styles of Christian music, but our common call is the gospel. May the intention of this week of focused prayer move us locally to seek together the ways of justice.

“God is leading us in the path of unity through our acts of justice”

A perusal of websites of our denominational churches shows how God is leading us in the path of unity through our acts of justice. Let’s celebrate this spark of light, knowing that the long haul of unity is graced with the many steps of collaboration.

Sister Loretta Manzara, CSJ

https://www.weekofprayer.ca/

The Word That Unites Us

In September 2019, Pope Francis promulgated the Third Sunday in Ordinary time to henceforth be the Sunday of the Word of God.  The purpose of this new decree is to remind us of the importance of knowing, what he referred to as, the Scripture of the Word.  Pope Francis explained: “The Word that saves us does not go looking for well preserved, clean, safe places.  It comes into our complexities, into our darkness.  Today, as then, God desires to visit those places where WE think he doesn’t go”. The next year, after Pope Francis celebrated Eucharist on the Sunday of the Word of God, he gave bibles to many of those gathered.

The bible is the most read book in the world.  I treasure my mother’s well-used, tattered bible which became her prized possession. It was Mom’s special companion during her long years as a widow. She received it decades ago from Sister Eveline Gagner, in a scripture course conducted in the church hall in our little hometown.  Sisters of St. Joseph have been evangelizers since our early beginnings. 

I often think that I should spend more time plumbing the depths of my own bible.  However, a few years ago, I heard that if one follows the liturgical cycles A, B, C and ponders the OT books, follows Jesus’ life in the Gospels of the New Testament and epistles of his followers, one will have covered a lot of scripture. Someone has counted it as 85% of the bible excluding counting the psalms.

January 18-25th is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  Before COVID time, various Christian churches gathered for annual intercommunity prayer services to celebrate the shared tenets of our faith, the most important of which is the Word of God.  Additionally, in the preparatory document for a Synodal, Pope Francis points out that we are called to deepen our relationship with other Church communities with which we are united by the one baptism. How can we fail to be united in heart when we share Jesus and the unfolding of God’s revelation throughout time and history?

-Sister Jean Moylan, csj

Image: Unsplash/Humble Lamb

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

18 - 25 January 2021

At least once a year, Christians are reminded of Jesus’ prayer for his disciples that “they may be one so that the world may believe” (see John 17:21). Hearts are touched and Christians come together to pray for their unity. Congregations and parishes all over the world exchange preachers or arrange special ecumenical celebrations and prayer services. The event that touches off this special experience is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The 2021 theme – Abide in my love and you shall bear much fruit (John 15:5-9) – calls us to pray and to work for reconciliation and unity in the church, with our human family, and with all of creation. Drawing on the Gospel image of vine and branches, it invites us to nourish unity with God and with one another through contemplative silence, prayer, and common action. Grafted into Christ the vine as many diverse branches, may we bear rich fruit and create new ways of living, with respect for and communion with all of creation.

Please join us during these challenging times of the pandemic, to pray for unity not only among Christians but among all peoples.

https://www.weekofprayer.ca/2021-week-prayer-christian-unity

-Sister Magdalena Vogt, cps