This week (Jan 18-25) is the Week of Christian Unity. Formerly called the Church Unity Octave, it is a week of prayer that begins with the feast of the Chair of St. Peter and ends with the feast of the Conversion of Paul. This year’s theme is “Abide in my love and you shall bear much fruit.” The theme was discerned by the ecumenical monastic community of Grandchamp, Areuse, in the canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland. Jan 18 (Monday) is also Martin Luther King Jr. day. Both MLK and Jesse Jackson, who as a young student marched with King at Selma, were ordained ministers. They gathered people of many faiths in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and ’70s and beyond. This past summer we saw again people of many faiths gathered to protest the death of George Floyd. It seems God has put into our human hearts a great desire for unity and for justice, a recognition of and striving for the common good. This heart desire brings people together across the separating lines of different faiths and no faith. Part of the prayer for Christian Unity week asks: Help us, we pray, to love, to forgive, to seek justice and to be your prophetic voice in the world. May your grace effect growth of good fruit among us so that our world may realize peace. As we listen to our Sunday Scriptures about call, perhaps this is our call for our times, our way of being disciples of Jesus the Christ today.
– Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia