Christian Unity Week
“Remain in my love and you will bear much fruit”
This year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, 18-25 January, has as its theme ‘Remaining in Christ’. The World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity invited the sisters of the ecumenical Community of Grandchamp in Switzerland to select the theme and prepare material around it. They chose a passage in St John’s Gospel (15:1-17), specifically Christ saying “Remain in my love and you shall bear much fruit”, which expresses their own community’s vocation to prayer, reconciliation and unity in the Church and the human family.
The Grandchamp Community was set up in the Reformed Church in Grandchamp, in the canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland, in the 1930s. It has close ties to the Community of Taizé. Today there are fifty sisters from different generations, churches, countries and continents who are called to a life of prayer for reconciliation and unity in the Church, the human family and the whole of creation. The community chapel is pictured above.
Here are some suggestions for how to participate in this Week of Prayer.
- Remember the intentions of the Week in personal and communal prayer
- Use some part of the order of service in the resources, available in English and Irish, https://ctbi.org.uk/week-of-prayer-for-christian-unity-2021/ in either personal or communal prayer
- Priests can choose to use the prayers from a Votive Mass for the Unity of Christians at Mass or use one of the Eucharistic Prayers for Reconciliation from the Missal
- Watch one of the online Ecumenical Services for Christian Unity.
An online service hosted by St Eunan’s Cathedral, Letterkenny, will take place at 7pm on Sunday 24th January. The homily will be given by Rev Heather Holton. Please join us to pray for the unity of all Christians.