Christian Unity – Communio

2021 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

The 2021 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity theme is “Abide in My Love…You Shall Bear Much Fruit.” It was discerned by the Monastic Community of Grandchamp in Switzerland and finds its origins in the Gospel of John (cf. John 15:5-9).

The Week of Prayer is January 18-25.

“Jesus gave his life for all out of his love for all,” said Fr. James Loughran, SA, Director of Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute (GEII). “To abide in his love reminds us that we live in a community celebrating our gift of unity.”

Several years ago now, Pope Benedict XVI reminded the Melkite Synod of Bishops that part of their work and education is to work for Christian Unity. This was also a theme of Benedict’s papacy and one that we ought to keep going in a substantial way by personal and ecclesial prayer, working for reconciliation and unity in the church, the human family and the whole of creation.

The committee who formed the theme said they “desired to share the experience and wisdom of their contemplative life abiding in the love of God and keeping his commandment of ‘loving one another as He has loved us.’ They remind Christians worldwide about the importance of praying for the fruits of closer communion with our brothers and sisters in Christ and greater solidarity with the whole of creation.”

More information can be found at the Graymoor Ecumenical and Inter-religious Institute.

The traditional period for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is January 18-25. It was the Servant of God Father Paul Wattson, SA, founder of the Society of the Atonement, who initiated observance of the first “Church Unity Octave” in 1908, to cover the original days of the feasts of the Chair of St. Peter (Jan. 18) and the Conversion of St. Paul (Jan. 25).

Blessed Maria Gabriella Sagheddu

Today, the Church honors a member of the Cistercian Order a blessed of the Church, an Italian nun, Blessed Maria Gabriella. A native of Sardinia, Italy born in 1914. Blessed Maria Gabriella was known to be given to willfulness, stubbornness and anger as a child and adolescent, but a conversion at 18 turned her will toward virtue and the love of Jesus Christ. Then, at 21, she entered a Cistercian monastery near Rome where she lived the contemplative, hidden life of a Trappistine nun. In her era, she likely knew nothing of the ‘ecumenical movement,’ at least not in any official way. In purity of heart –in a singular gesture– Sister Maria Gabriella offered her life for the Unity of the Church for all Christians.

In 1938, shortly after the offering of herself to the Lord, the symptoms of tuberculosis were diagnosed, and she died of this disease on April 23, 1939 (Good Shepherd Sunday), Her 15 months of suffering was an oblation.

On January 25, 1983, Pope John Paul II beatified her and named her patroness ‘of Unity’. She is a 20th century witness to our world that we have a responsibility for the restoration of the unity of Christians is the Love of Christ, personal conversion, sacrifice and prayer.

Let us pray,

O God, eternal shepherd, who inspired Blessed Maria Gabriella, virgin, to offer her life for the unity of all Christians, grant that through her intercession, the day may be hastened in which all believers in Christ, gathered around the table of your Word and of your Bread, may praise you with one heart and one voice. Through Christ our Lord.

Prayer for Christian Unity

From the 18-25 January 2014 the churches will observe what is called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Pope Paul VI in 1964 spoke of ecumenism not as a frontier, but a opening a door; not closing a dialogue, but keeping it open; not blaming for errors, but seeking virtue.

The work of dialogue among Christians can be extraordinarily beautiful and satisfying but it can also be difficult and frustrating. Much has to be focused on recognizing the Lord as the way, truth and the life, and then how to live the truth by relying with all our strength on the Holy Spirit. The key, in my estimation is not determined by human persons but by the Divine Persons. Spiritual ecumenism needs to be better known, lived and promoted. The object is for Christians to pray in a full visible way as one in Spirit and Truth.

The theme for 2014 is “Has Christ been divided?” (1 Cor. 1:1-17)

Resources are found here.

Blessed Maria Gabriella Sagheddu, pray for us.

Conversion of Saint Paul

O God, who taught the whole world through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul, draw us, we pray, nearer to you through the example of him whose conversion we celebrate today, and so make us witnesses to your truth in the world.

“Today, there is a great need for reconciliation, dialogue and mutual understanding,” in contemporary culture, said Pope Benedict XVI.

Let’s pray for the unity of Christians…

Catholics and Orthodox need to preserve the good of the dialogue for unity

Back on 31 October 2012, Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk

delivered a lecture dedicated to the past and present of Orthodox-Catholic dialogue at Villanova University (Philadelphia, PA). The 46 year old Metropolitan earned a doctorate from Oxford University and was ordained a bishop in 2002. In addition to being a residential bishop he is also the head of the Department of the External Church Relations since 2009. He is a widely published author and an excellent musician of international repute. The two Churches share the same concerns, though there are nuances to be made but that is a conversation for another time.

I think it is apropos to give a few extracts from the Metropolitan’s talk that pose some points for reflection on the unity of Christians. Remember we beginning the octave of Christian Unity on the 18th.

“The teaching of the holy fathers of the first millennium, when the Churches of the East and the West abided in unity, although at times this unity was subjected to serious trials, is the sure foundation upon which dialogue between Christians can develop successfully and fruitfully. It is my profound conviction that fidelity to the Christian tradition, the preservation of continuity in the teaching and life of the Church is the proper means for the restoration of unity among Christ’s disciples.

Continue reading Catholics and Orthodox need to preserve the good of the dialogue for unity

The priority renewal of the faith

The full body of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith met with the Pope on Friday, 27 January, to discuss his conviction that no other work of the Church, particularly this congregation, takes precedence to the work of evangelization. Everyone ought to be committed “to bringing God back into this world and to opening to all men access to the faith.”

Benedict see now as the opportune moment “to point out to all the gift of faith in the Risen Christ, the clear teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the invaluable doctrinal synthesis offered by the Catechism of the Catholic Church.” Recently, the Pope said that “we are facing a profound crisis of faith, a loss of religious meaning which constitutes the greatest challenge to the Church” (Message for World Mission Day).

Other things that concern us, the Pope noted were:

1. the unity among Christians: maintaining “coherence in the ecumenical task with the Second Vatican Council and the whole of Tradition”;

2. warned of the dangers of “a shallow moralism”;

3. to promote “the logic” contained in the conciliar teaching: “the sincere search for the full unity of all Christians is a dynamism animated by the Word of God”;

4. a need for a “discernment between Tradition with a capital letter and the traditions”: “There exists,” he said, “a spiritual wealth in the different Christian confessions, which is an expression of the one faith and gift to share” (reflecting the recent work done for the full communion of Anglicans).

The last concern of Benedict was that the entire Church speak with one voice with Peter.

Christ’s desire for unity, a communio

The Papal General Audience given in the Paul VI Hall today, Benedict spoke of the desire for unity that our Lord expressed in his priestly prayer at the Last Supper (John 17):

Against the backdrop of the Jewish feast of expiation Yom Kippur, Jesus, priest and victim, prays that the Father will glorify him in this, the hour of his sacrifice of reconciliation. He asks the Father to consecrate his disciples, setting them apart and sending them forth to continue his mission in the world. Christ also implores the gift of unity for all those who will believe in him through the preaching of the apostles.

Sacred Scripture and sacred Tradition and now echoed by Pope Benedict, believes that Christ’s priestly prayer is understood as His instituting the Church, the community of faith, the communio found explicitly in a church that is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Taking the Pauline manner of thinking, we are disciples of Christ who, through faith in Christ, are one and share in His saving mission:

In meditating upon the Lord’s priestly prayer, let us ask the Father for the grace to grow in our baptismal consecration and to open our own prayers to the needs of our neighbors and the whole world. Let us also pray, as we have just done in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, for the gift of the visible unity of all Christ’s followers, so that the world may believe in the Son and in the Father who sent him.

Pope explains the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

This week, as you know, is a period of time for prayer (and fasting, I hope) for the intention of Christian Unity. The intention in my mind, and I might say, in the mind of the Pope, is a non-negotiable: we need not only to pray but to actively work for unity among Christians. This week, therefore, is an invitation to beg the Lord for the grace of unity for the Church.

Pope Benedict speaks to the matter of our own conversion, a deep change of heart viz. unity. We need a united witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ today.

Christianity is not a community closed-in on itself, Pope tells us about Unity among Christians

The Pope’s homily for Vespers at the Basilica of Saint Paul’s Outside the Walls for the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul and the closing of Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. A video clip of the event.

Following the
example of Jesus, who on the eve of his Passion prayed to the Father for his
disciples “that they may all be one” (John 17:21), Christians
continue to invoke incessantly from God the gift of this unity. This request is
made more intense during the Week of Prayer, which ends today, when the
Churches and ecclesial Communities meditate and pray together for the unity of
all Christians.

This year the theme offered for our meditation was proposed by
the Christian communities of Jerusalem, to which I would like to express by heartfelt
gratitude, accompanied by the assurance of affection and prayer either on my
part or on that of the whole of the Church. The Christians of the Holy City
invite us to renew and

Continue reading Christianity is not a community closed-in on itself, Pope tells us about Unity among Christians

Pope talks about Christian Unity this week

This week the Christian Churches around the world are observing the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Today, the Pope gave his thoughts on the subject:

1. “we have listening to the teaching of the Apostles, or
listening to the witness that they give to the mission, life, death and
resurrection of the Lord Jesus. It is what Paul simply calls the Gospel”.
“Even today, the community of believers recognizes in reference to the
teaching of the Apostles the law for their faith; every effort to build unity
among all Christians therefore passes through the deepening of fidelity to the
deposit of faith handed down to us by the apostles.”

Continue reading Pope talks about Christian Unity this week