Office for Christian Unity
Thursday 14 December 2023
Meditation
Discovering that we are reconciled
Over the centuries, in the history of Christianity, multitudes of people have at one time discovered that they were separated. Today, in the ecumenical vocation to reconciliation, it is essential to bring about a turnaround that will enable multitudes of Christians to discover that they are reconciled, without humiliating their own.
So there is an urgent need for signs of a broad opening, so broad that we can see it and rejoice in it: they live in reconciliation. To find such openness, endless discussion about who was right and who was wrong leads nowhere. The call of the Gospel is quite transparent: without delay, let us be reconciled!
Loving Christ in the communion of love that is the Church presupposes a willingness, inwardly and in all simplicity, to trust in the Mystery of faith, the humble trust of faith that was that of the Apostles, the Virgin Mary and the whole cloud of witnesses, all imbued with the desire for Christ and the Gospel.
Brother Roger of Taizé (2023): J’irais jusqu’au bout du monde – Fragments inédits 1991-2005, Les Presses de Taizé, Salvator, pp.74-75
Intercessions
Prepared by our brothers and sisters at the “Centre Notre Dame du Roucas”
To be adapted according to your location
At the end of September, the Mediterranean meetings in Marseille brought together some sixty bishops and young people from 29 countries around the Mediterranean. It was an opportunity for warm and fraternal encounters between Christians from the local Churches and with many secular and inter-religious groups from the city and the region.
Give us the grace, Lord, to continue to bear witness together to the Love and Good News that you want the world to know.
This year we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the creation of Radio Dialogue RCF, founded jointly by the Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic Churches.
Blessed are you, Lord, for this call to which these churches have responded. Grant that together they may continue this work of evangelisation and proclamation of your good news through radio.
In Taizé, on 2 December, Brother Matthew took over from Brother Alois as Prior of the Taizé Community.
We bless you for the prophetic witness of this community, which has been praying and working for Christian unity since the 1940s. We entrust Brother Matthew to you with all his brothers and intercede that they may always be seekers of peace and reconciliation in the world and witnesses to your love for all people.