Prayer for the week of the Christian Unity
“learn to do good;seek justice”.
On the occasion of Prayer for Christian Unity Week, churches’ leaders held a joint prayer at the Cathedral of St Joseph on January 21, 2023, with the participation of the faithful laity and the churches’ choirs.
We continue to pray for Christian unity asking the intercession of our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary.
Prayer for the week of the Christian Unity
Our Lord prayed to God the Father for His disciples: “that they may be one… so that the world may believe” (Jn 17:21). The fellowship and unity of Christ’s disciples is an important condition for the credibility and effectiveness of the testimony of our Christian faith. Therefore, we continue to pray to God to grant us the grace of unity, as it is not a human effort, but rather a blessing from God, so we intensify our prayers together, not for the sake of having one language, unified rituals and hymns. These are all riches for the Church, rather we pray that we have one mind and one heart, because our unity is rooted in our belief in the One God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and Lover of all mankind, who invites us to stand before Him, as each Church is proud of its history, experience, and spiritual legacy, to grant Him Glory, and we learn one from the other, and bear witness to the love of Christ in us with humility.
Word of H. G. Archbishop Warda:
In this blessed week, the Church of Christ prays for unity, and sets its sights on the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “Learn goodness and seek justice.” In it, we overcome all our differences in order to pray for unity, through closeness to the poor and needy, so we share with them the good things, so that there is no needy among us. Since the spiritual teachers teach that the human soul transcends towards God with two wings: knowing God and fearing Him, and the head of wisdom is the fear of God that makes us pilgrims on earth. However, these two wings are the cause of disagreement and division among human beings in their worship of God. Each person or group may say that they are more afraid of the other, or more knowledgeable of God than him. That is from human beings, so many lives are violated, so the teachers continue to teach them, saying: The human soul transcends towards God with two wings: knowing God and fearing Him, and doing good towards others is the heart that revives it and gives it energy to continue sublime towards God, understanding its desires, motives, preferences and personal programs, And overcoming it, for the sake of the other’s good and the safety of his life, as the merciful Samaritan realized it (Luke 10: 25-37).
brothers and sisters,
Let us ask for the grace of unity trusting in the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church, and let us implore her with the trust of her children, to accompany us in prayer for the unity of the Church of her Son, just as she accompanied the apostles in the Upper Room.
