Prayer for Christian Unity — Octave of 18-25 January

The Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity is celebrated annually between 18 and 25 January — from the memorial of the Chair of St Peter in Rome (the date prior to the calendar reform of 1969, which moved it to 22 February) until the feast of the Conversion of St Paul, two of the apostolic pillars. It was instituted in 1908 by Fr Paul Wattson SA, an Anglican priest converted to Catholicism and cofounder of the Friars of the Atonement, with the approval of the Bishop of New York. Benedict XV extended it to the universal Church in 1916, indulgencing its observance. The Second Vatican Council, in the decree Unitatis Redintegratio (1964) n. 8, declared: «This conversion of heart and holiness of life, together with private and public prayer for Christian unity, must be regarded as the soul of the entire ecumenical movement, and can rightly be called spiritual ecumenism». The intention is founded on the priestly prayer of the Lord before the Passion: «ut omnes unum sint… ut credat mundus» (Jn 17:21).

Lord Jesus Christ, on the night in which you were betrayed, you made to the Father this supplication before your disciples: «that all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me.»

This your prayer is not yet fulfilled. Your Church — the bride for whom you delivered yourself — has been divided for centuries: by the rupture with the non-Catholic Eastern Churches in 1054, by the separations of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, by the endless new fragmentations which continue to multiply. Every division among Christians contradicts your will and wounds the credibility of the Gospel before the world.

Therefore, in this Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity, I offer you my prayer and my small sacrifice for the full visible unity of all the baptised around the Successor of Peter, according to your will. Convert all of us — beginning with me — so that unity may not only be asked for but concretely desired, in fidelity to revealed truth and in the charity which never fails.

Holy Spirit Paraclete, soul of the Church one, lead the separated Christians to the one fold under the one Shepherd (cf. Jn 10:16).

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.