Unity Octave 2007

Today we begin the observance of another Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The dates each year are always the same, 18th to 15th January, chosen at the beginning of the last century by Anglicans primarily hoping for reunion with Rome to link together today's feast of the Confession of St Peter, Apostle with that of next Thursday, the feast of the Conversion of St Paul, Apostle.

Today's feast has been kept since the 4th century as a symbol of the unity of the Church based on the faith first confessed by St Peter when he declared Jesus "the Christ, the Son of the living God" at Caesarea Phillipi.

Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (www.ctbi.org.uk) publish a pamphlet containing daily prayers and reflections for the eight days. The text for 2007 comes from South Africa, via an International Committee, and reflects on suffering and death caused there by HIV/AIDS. Users are encouraged also to draw on the experience of suffering in their own communities from whatever cause.

God bless Africa
Guard her peoples
Guide her rulers
and grant her peace. Amen. (Trevor Huddleston 1913-98)

Open our eyes that we may see Jesus the Daystar, who dispels our shadows.
Open our ears that we may hear the voices muffled by the trials and struggles of this transient world.
Open our hearts, that together we may know how to respond to the pain of those among us who are suffering; as Jesus respectfully entered the world of the man who could neither hear nor speak, and healed him.
This we ask, through Christ, our Lord. Amen.