Week of Prayer for Christian Unity runs from Jan 18-25

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity  runs from 18 – 25 Jan 2018.

This year’s theme is “Your Right Hand, O Lord, Glorious in Power” (Exodus 15:6) Apart from this theme there are also different themes for each individual day which are:

January 18      Welcoming the Stranger

January 19      No Longer a Slave

January 20      Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit

January 21      Hope and Healing

January 22      Unity in Christ: Hearing the Cries of the Poor

January 23      Let us look to the interests of Others

January 24      Building a Family in household and Church

January 25      Our Covenant with God

The resources for this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity have been prepared by the churches of the Caribbean.

According to the annual brochure jointly prepared and published by the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity and the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches, “the contemporary Caribbean is deeply marked by the dehumanising project of colonial exploitation.”

The document goes on to say that “today Caribbean Christians of many different traditions see the hand of God active in the ending of enslavement. It is a uniting experience of the saving action of God which brings freedom. For this reason the choice of the song of Moses and Miriam (Ex 15:1-21), as the motif of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2018 was considered a most appropriate one.”

The daily reflections raise a number of issues facing the churches of the Caribbean, such as human trafficking and modern day slavery, challenges facing the family, and migration.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was first proposed in 1908 as an observance within the Catholic Church by Father Paul Wattson, founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement in Graymoor, New York, because it begins with the feast of St Peter and ends with the feast of the conversion of St Paul. – vatican news