‘Do You Believe This?’

January 10, 2025 in Featured News, News

Jesuits, colleagues and friends took part in various prayerful occasions to mark the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which began on Saturday 18 January 2025 and ended on Saturday 25 January. Tom Layden SJ, former Irish Jesuit Provincial and now Province Co-Ordinator for Ecumenism, had urged people to take part in the event in whatever way worked best for them.

Manresa Jesuit Centre for Spirituality issued an open invitation to anyone from anywhere to join the via zoom each day of the week at 12pm to reflect, share and pray together. Different people led the daily sessions, including Tom Layden SJ, Joe Greenan, Director of the Manresa Centre, and Pat Coyle, Director of Irish Jesuit Communications. Participants from Ireland, and across the pond in the USA joined together to pray for and with fellow Christians around the world, and for the whole global community at large.

‘Do You Believe This?’ was the theme of the Week of Prayer. Referencing this year’s theme, ‘Do You Believe This?’ Dr Nicola Brady, General Secretary, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland said that this was the question “that resonated throughout the deliberations of the first Ecumenical Council, meeting in Nicaea in 325, which gathered Christian communities from around the world to strengthen their relationships as the Church of Jesus Christ.”

She went on to say that if the question is simply read in isolation then it appears as a “stark challenge” rather than words of love from Jesus that serve both as invitation and challenge. And she added, “Similarly, while the Council of Nicaea was not without its challenges as a wounded and scattered Church sought to discern the truth of the Gospel message, there was an obvious desire to deepen connection and belonging and to live faithfully as disciples of Christ.”

In his letter to the Irish Province, which you can read in full below, Tom Layden offered some suggestions on how Jesuits, colleagues and friends might participate in this significant annual week in the calendar of many Christian churches.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity pamphlet ‘Do You Believe This?’ is available for download here » in English and here in Irish »

A Question of Love

Dear Brothers and Friends,

I write to you concerning the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18-25 January). This year’s theme is ‘Do you believe this?’, the question posed to Martha by Jesus (John 11:26).

The materials for our prayer and reflection this year have been prepared by the sisters and brothers of Bose, an ecumenical monastery in Northern Italy. The question raised by Jesus also resonated throughout the discussions and debates of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea whose 1700th anniversary we mark in 2025. At the heart of this year’s main worship service is the Nicene Creed. Reflecting this the scripture readings focus on belief. As a community we are invited to reflect on Martha’s confession of faith as we find it in John 11:17-27. We are called to sit with the challenging yet life-giving question Jesus put to Martha ‘Do you believe this?’ We respond to the Word in a solemn profession of the Nicene Creed.

As disciples of Jesus, we are invited to deepen our faith in union with our sisters and brothers throughout the world as well as with those of earlier times including the ones who gathered at Nicaea in 325. This is a challenging invitation to which we cannot respond solely with our own efforts. We need the power of the Holy Spirit so that we might be strengthened in faith, confirmed in hope and expanded in love.

The annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity offers us a particular opportunity to celebrate all that we have in common, to express regret for the pain caused by our divisions and to ask the Lord to deepen in us the hope that we will all be one someday in the future. And this annual letter is a reminder and an encouragement to all of us to participate in the Week of Prayer in some appropriate way.

I offer some suggestions as to how we can participate in the Week. You will, of course, have ideas of your own based on your own experience and context.

  • Remember the intentions of the Week in personal and communal prayer.
  • Use some part of the order of service in the resources in the attachment sent along with this letter in either personal or communal prayer.
  • Use the prayers from a Votive Mass for the Unity of Christians at Mass.
  • Use one of the Eucharistic Prayers for Reconciliation from the Missal.
  • Watch online or attend a Sunday service from a church of another tradition in your local area.
  • Write a letter of greeting or send an email to a person from another Christian tradition whom you know either through work or personal contact.

May the Spirit of Unity continue to be active in our midst. We give thanks for the growth in unity which we have seen in the years since the Edinburgh Conference (1910) and the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). We ask the Lord’s blessing on the work that still needs to be done.

If I can be of any further assistance to you, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or by phone at 00 44 74 7991 3293.

Your brother in the Lord,

Tom Layden, SJ

Province Coordinator of Ecumenism 10 January 2025