Praying and Striving
Peter Colwell, Acting Director of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began in 1908 as the Octave of Unity within the Roman Catholic Church, but it was the vision of Father Paul Couturier of praying 'for the unity of the Church as Christ wills it, and in accordance with the means he wills' that is generally thought of as the beginning of this Week of Prayer. The week has traditionally been held between the 18 and 25 January in the global north, although it is commonly marked at Pentecost in the global south.
So, why should we pray for unity when there is so much cooperation between the churches but complete unity is unattainable? Is it not better to pursue what some call 'reconciled diversity'? And then there is the complaint that the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is too much about social justice and not enough about praying for unity!
Christian unity is Christ’s gift to His church. It is also something we pray for because we live in a fractured and deeply divided world. As human beings we are complicit in the social and economic divisions of our world, whether it be racism, climate change, gender-based violence or poverty. What comes with that is the way our church structures are deeply implicated in the injustices and divisions in almost every society. As the late Archbishop Tutu famously remarked, 'a divided church is too weak to resist apartheid'. And so, our praying and striving must go hand in hand.
Because we are committed to Christian unity as a 'movement', we can easily fall into the assumption that Christian unity is dependent on human striving alone. Striving is a good thing, and the ecumenical movement has been at the forefront of many campaigns and struggles for social justice, including the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, racial justice and inter faith work. But when striving flows from our prayer for unity, it becomes a part of praying, declaring that all we do is dependent on God’s grace. We are also witnessing to the unity that we have in Christ, participating in God’s work in the world and His desire that the whole of creation (not just the church) be reconciled to God.
For 2022 we are led in prayer by the churches of the Middle East. Christianity began as a Middle Eastern religion and today, more than ever before, we are acutely aware of the challenges faced by the churches in this region. Recently the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem spoke of the urgent situation Christians face both in terms of the Israeli occupation and wider geopolitical turmoil. Their message to Christians across the world is not one of bad news but a reminder of the hope that comes with Christ coming into the world. They have chosen as their text the visit of the Magi to the Holy Family in Bethlehem, a story that contains much political and social turmoil as we experience today. Therefore in 2022 our prayer for Christian unity is also a prayer for justice and reconciliation in places of conflict, and a prayer of solidarity - for only when we are truly in solidarity with one another can we find our reconciliation in Christ.