January 24, 2021 - "Celebrating Many Things"

Today we are celebrating many things.  First of all, today is Word of God Sunday, a feast that Pope Francis introduced in 2019 that is to be celebrated on the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.  Today is also Ecumenical Sunday, when we celebrate what God is doing through the many ecumenical agencies—local, regional, national, and international—that make up the modern ecumenical movement.  We have been observing the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity since last Monday.  The observance for 2021 will conclude tomorrow when we celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul.
 
The Church Unity Octave (eight days of prayer) was first observed in January, 1908.  Celebrated in the chapel of a small Atonement Chapel of the Protestant Episcopal Church In upstate New York, this new prayer movement caught the imagination of others beyond the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement to become a prayer movement that in time blossomed into a worldwide observance involving many nations and millions of people.
 
It is very interesting to look at the early history of the movement to fully appreciate the many streams that fed into it, so that it became an important opportunity to pray and work toward the unity of Christians.  Two American Episcopalians, Father Paul James Wattson and Sister Lurana White, co-founders of the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of Atonement, were totally committed to the reunion of the Anglican Communion with the Roman Catholic Church.  As such, they started a prayer movement that explicitly prayed for the return of non-Catholic Christians to the Holy See.   Understandably such an observance would attract few of separated brethren except for a small number of Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics themselves.  The idea of a period of prayer for Christian unity originated in a conversation of Fr. Wattson with an English clergyman, Rev. Spencer Jones.  In 1907, Reverend Jones suggested that a day be set aside for prayer for Christian Unity.  Fr. Wattson agreed with the concept but offered the idea of eight days of prayer between the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter on January 18 and the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul on January 25.
 
When Fr. Paul and Sr. Lurana became Roman Catholics, Pope Pius X gave his blessing to the Church Unity Octave and in 1916, Pope Benedict XV extended its observance to the universal church.  This recognition by papal authority gave the Octave its impetus throughout the Roman Catholic Church.  Until his death in 1940 Fr. Wattson promoted the Church Unity Octave, later known as the Chair of Unity Octave to emphasize its Petrine focus.
 
It should be noted that popes had urged Roman Catholics to pray for Christian unity but from the particular stance of return to the Roman Catholic Church.  In 1894, Pope Leo XIII encouraged Catholics to recite the rosary for the intention of Christian unity.  Three years later he decreed that the days between Ascension and Pentecost should be dedicated to prayer for reconciliation with our separate brothers and sisters.

In 1935, Fr. Paul Couturier, a priest of the Archdiocese of Lyons (France), sought a solution to the problem of non-Roman Catholics not being able to observe the Eight Days of Prayer for Christian Unity.  Using the Roman Missal as a basis for his suggestion, Fr. Couturier promoted prayer for Christian unity on the inclusive basis that “our Lord would grant to his Church on earth that peace and unity which were in his mind and purpose, when, on the Eve of His Passion, He prayed that all might be one.” This prayer would unite Christians in prayer for that perfect unity that God wills and by the means that he wills.  Like Fr. Wattson, Fr. Couturier exhibited a great passion for unity and sent out “calls for prayer” each year until his death in 1963.
 
While not all Catholics had accepted Couturier’s solution and some continued to emphasize the centrality of the Petrine office in unity efforts and prayers, all difficulties were resolved in 1964 with the promulgation of the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council.  The Decree told Roman Catholics in clear and unambiguous terms:  “In certain special circumstances, such as in prayer services for unity and during ecumenical gatherings, it is allowable, even desirable, that Catholics should join in prayer with their separated brethren.  Such prayers in common are certainly a very effective means of petitioning for the grace of unity, and they are a genuine expression of the ties which even now bind Catholics to their separated brethren.”
 
Let us then on this Ecumenical Sunday remember the ardent prayer of Fr. Couturier that “our Lord would grant to his Church on earth that peace and unity which were in his mind and purpose, when, on the Eve of His Passion, He prayed that all might be one.”
 
Until next week,
Fr. John