Office for Christian Unity
Thursday 11 January 2024
Meditation
From one beginning to the next
If only we could welcome the new day with every dawn, as the beginning of a new life!… “He who walks towards God goes from beginning to beginning .”
Do we know that? God buries our past in the heart of Christ, and he will take care of our future.
If it were possible to fathom our human heart, the surprise would be to discover in it, whether fleeting or lasting, the expectation of an invisible presence.
If there are shocks and even tremors in our lives, the Risen Christ is there. He could say to us: when you find yourself in the depths of trial, I stand beneath your despair. And remember: I am also in the depths of radiant hope.
Breathe on fleeting sorrows like a child on a dry leaf. Not clinging to worries like a hand to a thorn bush, but letting go. To surrender to Christ all that ails the heart.
Those who dwell on failures and discouragement see the fibres of their soul frozen. In new beginnings, peace of heart and Gospel joy can change our lives.
The Holy Spirit fills us with gifts. How can we discern them and dare to believe in them?
Are we touched by doubt? Let’s not let it stop us. Doubt is nothing to be alarmed about.
Those who listen, day and night, who welcome the gifts of the Holy Spirit, will discover that with almost nothing, they have everything.
Brother Roger of Taizé (2023) : J’irais jusqu’au bout du monde – Fragments inédits 1991-2005, Les Presses de Taizé, Salvator, pp.90-91
Intercessions
Prepared by the brothers and sisters of Chartres
To be adapted according to your location
At the beginning of 2024, many countries are still at war:
Lord, we pray for:
- Peace between Russia and Ukraine
- Peace between Palestine and Israel
- Peace in eastern Congo
- Peace in Yemen
- Peace in the Sahel region
- Peace in Sudan
- Peace in Burma
- Peace in Somalia
- Peace in Syria
- Peace in all the other places suffering from violence.
Lord, we pray for the unity of our Churches:
- For the unity of the Orthodox Churches: may the journey begun at Christmas between the Bulgarian Church and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople become for all a sign of your covenant.
- For the unity of the Catholic Church: may the tensions surrounding the Vatican’s publication of the doctrinal declaration Fiducia supplicans (Supplicant Trust) on the pastoral significance of blessings be an opportunity for the Catholic faithful to engage in greater dialogue and fraternity.
- For the Anglican Communion: may the momentum of “walking, listening and witnessing together” experienced at the Lambeth Conference in 2022, bringing together all the bishops of the Anglican Communion, continue to bear fruit in terms of unity.
Lord, we entrust to you the formation centres of the Chemin Neuf Community on the five continents. We pray in particular this week for the students at the Centre Sèvres in Paris and for all those who will be taking part in an evening debate with them on 11 January, on the occasion of the publication of the latest document by the Dombes group entitled: “From all nations”… For the catholicity of the Churches.