Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
Tom Layden SJ, former Irish Jesuit Provincial and now Province Co-Ordinator for Ecumenism, is urging Jesuits, friends, and colleagues to join in the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which begins on Thursday 18 January 2024.
This year’s theme of ‘Go and do likewise’ is the well-known injunction from the parable of the Good Samaritan. It was chosen by the Christian churches of Burkina Faso who note that the parable “never seems to lose its power to challenge indifference to suffering and to inspire solidarity.” They say it is a story about crossing boundaries that calls our attention to the bonds that unite the whole human family.
In his letter to the Irish Province, which you can read in full below, Tom Layden says he wants to remind and encourage everyone to participate in the Week of Prayer in some appropriate way and he offers some suggestions on how to do so.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity pamphlet ‘Go and do likewise’ is available for download here »
Learning from the Good Samaritan
Dear Brothers and Friends,
I write to you concerning the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18-25 January). This year’s theme ‘Go and do likewise’ (Luke 10:37) is taken from the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37) which is one of the best-known passages of Scripture. It never seems to lose its power to challenge indifference to suffering and to call us to solidarity. It is a story about crossing human boundaries that draws our attention to the bonds that unite the whole human family.
In choosing this passage, the churches of Burkina Faso invite us to join with them In a process of self-reflection, as they consider what love of neighbour means in a security crisis. We may seem less vulnerable to acts of mass violence than Burkina Faso. But there are still many in our land with the memory or the threat of serious violence related to issues of identity and belonging. In this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we, as Church, are being challenged to stop and to tend to the wounded. In doing so, we are aware of our own wounds as churches and communities and our need to encounter Christ’s healing love.
The annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity offers us a particular opportunity to recall 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. 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 link 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 a Sunday service from a church of another tradition.
• 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 further assist 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
18 January 2024.
