Remeber to pray for the unity of Christians. This is a special week for doing so. The conversion of St. Paul reminds us of this obligation.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaaortiz@yahoo.com), January 18, 2002

Answers

-@-

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), January 18, 2002.

Thanks for the reminder of the 8-day Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Enrique. JFG
Here is part of an article on the subject, found on the Internet:

-------------------------- QUOTE --------------------------
The annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, now a worldwide observance, began in 1908 in the Episcopal Church at Graymoor, New York. It all started with Paul James Wattson, an Episcopalian priest with a passion for Christian unity. With Lurana Mary White, also an Episcopalian, he had co-founded a Franciscan religious order called the Society of the Atonement. Wattson, who eventually became a Catholic, was a vigorous advocate of Anglican and ... Catholic reunion, and he emphasized the role of the papacy in the reunion of Christians.

Fr. Wattson had few supporters in his church. One of them was the Rev. Spencer Jones, a rector of the Church of England. In 1907 Jones suggested to Wattson that a day devoted to Christian unity should be observed throughout the world every year on the Feast of St. Peter (June 29). Fr. Wattson liked the idea but had the further suggestion of a 'Church Unity Week' beginning on the Feast of the Chair of Peter (at that time January 18) and ending on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25).

First observed in 1908, Church Unity Week was eventually called the 'Church Unity Octave,' since there were eight days between the two feasts. Later, the Faith and Order movement expressed interest in common Christian prayer for unity and in 1926 published 'Suggestions for an Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity,' proposing that more Christian churches pray together for unity. In the 1930s Wattson changed the name ... to the 'Chair of Unity Octave,' emphasizing the role of the papacy in the union of the Christian churches. In 1935 Abbé Paul Couturier, a Catholic priest in France, advocated a 'Universal Week of Prayer for Christian Unity' during which Christians would pray together 'for the unity Christ wills by the means He wills.' Common Christian prayer for unity continued to grow throughout the world.

With the Second Vatican Council, 1962-1965, an increasing number of Catholics joined other Christians each year in January for common prayer for unity. The council's Decree on Ecumenism called prayer 'the soul of the ecumenical movement' and encouraged the observance of what is now known as the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In 1966, the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches and the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity began collaborating on a common international text for worldwide usage.

[by Sister Lorelei, SA, Associate Director, Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute, New York, NY.]

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), January 18, 2002.