Service for Unity,
Thursday, November, 25th, 2021
Meditation
CHRISTIAN ECUMENISM THE ACTIVE WELCOME OF OTHERS
Unity is a gift from God; it has its source in God, for God is one: one God and Father of all who tirelessly presents the Good News to everyone; one Christ, who saves us all without any exception; one Spirit that works through the mind and the heart teaching us the language of our own response.
Paul tells us that this language is called charity: “Make yourselves, by charity, servants of one another. The whole law holds in this one precept: you will love your neighbour as yourself. ”
The ecumenism of the Christian is also the active welcome of others. […]
We therefore want, with a universal fraternal outlook, together to be open to the secular world so that it can be drawn into an evangelical charity; this is revolutionary; looked at this way it requires conversion, discipline, renunciation; it is fully human, authentically human.
Participating in every struggle in the service of mankind, in every undertaking for justice, in every action in favour of peace, we will know how to persevere to the end: to be together in order to bear witness, humbly and concretely, to charity: this is the Word of God being received and lived.
Cardinal Francois Marty, Dieu est tenace, Éditions du Cerf, 1973, p. 17-18
Intercessions
Prepared by our brothers and sisters St. Denys de la Chapelle parish in Paris, France.
To be used as appropriate
1. Lord Jesus Christ, we entrust to you the various Churches which every Sunday conduct their worship in the premises of the Catholic parish of Saint Dionysius of the Chapel in Paris: The Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Episcopalian Church of the Philippines and the Methodist Church from the Ivoryan diaspora. We thank you for their presence and this co-habitation in the same place.
Send your Holy Spirit to each of our assemblies so that our communion in You may be nourished. May our assemblies, depending upon prayer and faith in your resurrection, be more and more a sign of your presence both for us and for the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.
2. Lord Jesus Christ, we entrust to you our migrant brothers and sisters who live very precariously in the northern districts of Paris. Be their strength and manifest yourself in their sufferings. We entrust to you the humble ministry of welcome which takes place every Saturday morning during the solidarity breakfast in the parish of St Denys de la Chapelle. We also entrust to you the partnership with the “Utopia 56” association in which we are involved with several parishioners and citizens who offer hospitality so as to ensure a night shelter for families and single women in the street. Send your Holy Spirit so that these collaborations with civil society bear fruit in peace and charity.
3. Lord Jesus Christ, we pray to you for all those involved in the work of ecumenical institutions. More particularly we ask you that the work of writing the document of the Dombes Group entitled “For the catholicity of the Churches” will be accomplished in the light of your Holy Spirit. We also entrust to you the preparatory work for the Ecumenical Youth Gathering of the Ecumenical Council of Churches which will take place in August 2022. Send your breath on these different institutions and on Christians of all denominations who will receive the fruits of their work. May they be renewed in hope and in the search for paths towards the Unity of the Churches.