Reportedly, Saturday, January 18, 1908 was an ordinary winter day in the Hudson Valley in upstate New York. The cold kept the hill country blanketed in snow.

Less than ordinary, however, was that on that same day, a small group of Anglican Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement gathered in the sisters’ convent chapel at Graymoor, New York to inaugurate a prayer movement called the Church Unity Octave—eight consecutive days of prayer. History would later point to that event as the first expression of organized prayer for Christian unity in the post reformation church.

On Friday, January 18, we will celebrate 100 years of organized prayer for Christian unity. It immediately reminds us of all the work that has been done, especially since Vatican II, and the work yet to be accomplished.

Rev. Paul Wattson and Mother Lurana White had co-founded the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement in 1898. In their shared longing for the reunion of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, the two established the prayer octave.

After ten years of Anglican governance, the community of friars and sisters requested and eventually were given permission to be received into the Roman Catholic Church. They were received in 1909 by Pope Pius X, who approved of the new prayer movement for Church unity. In 1916 Benedict XV extended its observance to the universal church of Rome. Following the Second Vatican Council, this prayer movement has been universally observed as the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

In his recent work, A Handbook of Spiritual Ecumenism, Cardinal Walter Kasper reaffirms the essential nature and centrality of prayer for Church unity, as first expressed in the Decree on Ecumenism—“public and private prayer for the unity of Christians should be regarded as the soul of the whole ecumenical movement.”

The Council and all who point to the indispensable need of prayer for Christian unity take their lead from the passionate prayer of Jesus to the Father: “That they may all 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 sent me”
(Jn 17:21).

Pursuing Church unity without prayer is like occupying a room without oxygen. The legacy of prayer for Christian unity keeps us ever mindful that this common journey must be rooted in the same hope that accompanied Jesus in his prayer to the Father. The spiritual treasury that is prayer is the single most important ingredient guiding partners along the path to Christian unity.

Prayer, invoking the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, is especially essential when signs of hope seem to grow dim and the way forward seems impassable or obstructed by unforeseen complications. Addressing this very issue, Pope John Paul II’s remarks are pertinent. Speaking at the 2003 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, he noted that “we cannot fail to acknowledge realistically the difficulties, the problems and at times the disappointments which we still encounter … while experiencing that pain that we are not yet able to share the Eucharistic banquet.”

The pope went on to say, “all Christians are called to press forward on their earthly pilgrimage without letting themselves be overwhelmed by difficulties or afflictions, in the certainty that they will overcome all obstacles thanks to the help of the power which comes from on high.”

With faith in our hearts and hope in our spirits, we firmly believe that the one who asks always receives, the one who searches always finds and the one who knocks will always have the door opened (see Mt 7:7-8). Our sources of prayer, the Scriptures, the Eucharist and the many forms of ecumenical prayer, are the accompanying handmaid to the real heavy lifting, which cannot be avoided when in honest pursuit of this goal of Christian unity. While there are hills yet to climb, valleys to be forged and mountains to scale, there is general agreement that we can only pass through the door of ecumenism on our knees.

As we press on toward the achievement of this holy and realistic ideal—full and visible unity in truth and charity—we do well to be reminded that “God’s call to interior conversion and renewal in the Church, so fundamental to the quest for unity, excludes no one” (Ecumenical Directory #55). Ecumenism can never be left in the hands of a few.

Today accepting the challenge to work and pray for Christian unity is not a choice we arbitrarily make, but an obligation we must necessarily assume. This truth is more clearly stated in the directive given in the document On Commitment to Ecumenism (100). There we are reminded that “it is absolutely clear that the movement promoting Christian unity is not just some sort of appendix added to the Church’s traditional activity. Rather, ecumenism is an organic part of her life and work and consequently must pervade all that she is and does.”

As believers we are both counted in and are being counted on to actively pursue the work of Christian unity, especially in and through our prayer and in our relationships with one another. Each one of us must see ourselves as a spiritual ecumenist.

As we move into the next century of prayer, there is common agreement that the Spirit has been at work in the Church and in the world. We are sustained in hope knowing that the same Spirit will not disappoint as we go forward, committed to the 2008 Week of Prayer theme, “Pray Without Ceasing” (1 Thes 5:13-18).

Rev. Damian MacPherson is a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement and Director for Ecumenical and Interfaith Affairs at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto.

Published in Living City (January 2008), the Focolare Movement's monthly magazine of religion, dialogue and culture