Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Join us on Friday 20th January at 12:20pm for our monthly Ecumenical Eucharist as we join Christians around the globe in Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This annual period of prayers throughout the world is sometimes referred to as an Octave, as in the Northern Hemisphere it runs from 18th January, the Feast of St Peter’s Great Confession to 25th January, the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul.

(In the Southern Hemisphere, where this is in the middle of holiday-time, it is celebrated over a slightly longer period of the ten days between Ascensiontide and Pentecost).

Begun in the early part of the 20th Century and orchestrated by the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the study material available for us each year comes via Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CBTI). This year the theme chosen is

Be-Longing: Praying for Unity amidst Injustice

noting the 30th anniversary of the murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence in London on 22nd April 1993 and the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. Although prepared by a study group in the middle of last year, it has become even more poignantly topical.

In Old Saint Paul’s, we are going to advance by one week to Friday 20th January at 12.20pm our monthly Ecumenical Eucharist (usually celebrated on the last Friday) using the structure and material produced by the CBTI and adapted for this occasion:

Disturb us in our contentment,
distract us from our comforts,
deter us from our conflict,
until your kingdom comes and your will is done.

 

Rodney Matthews