Today is the fifth day of this year's week of prayer for Christian Unity. The Church Unity Octave, a forerunner of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, was developed by Father Paul Wattson, SA, at Graymoor in Garrison, New York, and was first observed at Graymoor from January 18-25, 1908. Today, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity invites the whole Christian community throughout the world to pray in communion with the prayer of Jesus “that they all may be one” (John 17:21).
In 1966, the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches and the Vatican Secretariat (now Council) for Promoting Christian Unity began collaborating as a common international text for worldwide usage. Since 1968 these international texts, which are based on themes proposed by ecumenical groups around the world, have been developed, adapted and published for use in the United States by the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute.
The chosen theme for the 2011 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is One in the Apostles’ Teaching, Fellowship, Breaking of Bread and Prayer (Acts 2:42). In Taylorsville, our sister parish, All Saints, is in covenant with Taylorsville United Methodist Church and Christian Church of Taylorsville. On the Sunday of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity the covenant churches have a pulpit exchange. I will be preaching at Taylorsville United Methodist Church at their 11 AM service on Sunday, January 23.
The World Council of Churches publishes materials for Biblical reflections and prayers for the 8 days of the Week of Prayer. Even though, we have no covenant or formal celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at Saint Francis Xavier, I encourage everyone to participate with our Christian brothers and sisters throughout the world with the daily reflections and prayers posted here.
Deacon Gerry
Day 5 - Breaking the Bread in Hope
Reading:
Exodus 16: 13b-21a It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat
Psalm:116: 12-14.16-18 I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice
1 Corinthians 11:17-18.23-26 Do this in remembrance of me
John 6:53-58 This is the bread that came down from heaven...
Commentary:
From the first Church at Jerusalem until now, the ‘breaking of bread’ has been a central act for
Christians. For the Christians of Jerusalem today, the sharing of bread traditionally speaks of
friendship, forgiveness and commitment to the other. We are challenged in this breaking of bread
to seek a unity that can speak prophetically to a world of divisions. This is the world by which we
have all, in different ways, been shaped. In the breaking of bread Christians are formed anew for
the prophetic message of hope for all humankind.
Today we, too, break bread ‘with glad and generous hearts’; but we also experience, at each
celebration of the Eucharist, a painful reminder of our disunity. On this fifth day of the Week of
Prayer, the Christians of Jerusalem gather in the Upper Room, the place of the Last Supper. Here,
whilst they do not celebrate the Eucharist, they break bread in hope.
We learn this hope in the ways God reaches out to us in the wilderness of our own discontent.
Exodus relates how God responds to the grumbling of the people he has liberated, by providing
them with what they need - no more, and no less. The manna in the desert is a gift of God, not to
be hoarded, nor even fully understood. It is, as our Psalm celebrates, a moment which calls
simply for thanksgiving - for God ‘has loosened our bonds’.
What St. Paul recognises is that to break the bread means not only to celebrate the Eucharist, but
to be a Eucharistic people - to become Christ’s Body in the world. This short reading stands, in its
context (1 Cor 10 - 11) as a reminder of how the Christian community is to live: in communion in
Christ, determining right behaviour in a difficult worldly context, guided by the reality of our life
in Him. We live “in remembrance of him.”
As a people of the breaking of bread, we are a people of eternal life - life in its fullness - as the
reading from St. John teaches us. Our celebration of Eucharist challenges us to reflect on how
such an abundant gift of life is expressed day to day as we live in hope as well as in difficulties.
In spite of the daily challenges for the Christians in Jerusalem, they witness to how it is possible
to rejoice in hope.
Prayer:
God of Hope, we praise you for your gift to us of the Lord’s Supper, where, in the Spirit, we
continue to meet your Son Jesus Christ, the living bread from heaven. Forgive our unworthiness
of this great gift - our living in factions, our collusion with inequalities, our complacency in
separation. Lord, we pray that you will hasten the day when your whole church together shares
the breaking of the bread, and that, as we wait for that day, we may learn more deeply to be a
people formed by the Eucharist for service to the world. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment