By Caroline Busuttil –
Correspondent from the Focolare Movement for Ecumenical dialogue. –
Every year in January during the Unity Octave Christians of different Churches across the world gather to pray together and to grow in unity. The theme for the 2019 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is “Justice and only justice you shall pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:18-20). We live in a fractured world where corruption, greed and injustice give rise to inequality and division, but we know that when we pray united in Jesus’ name our prayer is powerful and can bring healing.
Every year the Word of Life of January highlights words that Chiara Lubich said in reference to the theme chosen for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This year it recalls what Chiara said when she spoke at an ecumenical meeting in the Evangelical Church of St. Anne in Augsburg, Germany in 1998.
Let’s join all initiatives of prayer services for Christian unity during this week, and seek to increase our love for those Christians who belong to a Church that is different from ours.
List of Places for United Celebration from 6 to 7.30 pm in Bangalore:
January 18: Indiranagar Methodist Church, Indiranagar
January 19: St Mary’s Cathedral Jacobite Church, Queen’s Road
January 20: A Pentecostal Service, Pottery Town
January 21: Seventh Day Adventist Church, Frazer Town
January 22: Marthoma Church, Jalahalli
January 23: St Andrew’s Church, CSI, Cubbon Road
January 24: Malankara Orthodox Church at Johnson Market
January 25: Paalanaa Bhavana, Benson Town
“If we Christians take a look at our history we will be saddened to see that it has often been a succession of misunderstandings, quarrels and conflicts. Certainly it was due to historical, cultural, political, geographical and social circumstances, but also because Christians were lacking in what is their specific unifying feature: love.
Efforts in the field of ecumenism will be fruitful in so far as those who dedicate themselves to it see in Jesus crucified and forsaken, who re-abandons himself to the Father, the key to understanding every disunity and to re-establishing unity …
“When unity is put into practice, it has an effect … It is the presence of Jesus among people, in the community. Jesus said, ‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them’ (Mt 18:20).
“The presence of Jesus therefore between a Catholic and an Evangelical who live mutual love, between an Anglican and an Orthodox, between an Armenian and a Reformed Christian. How much peace it would bring even now, how much light it would provide or generate for a productive ecumenical journey!”