Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
Day 2

The lawyer answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind;
and your neighbor as yourself.”
(Luke 10:27)

The lawyer’s answer may seem simple, drawn from the well-known commandments of God.  However, to love God in this way and our neighbor as ourselves can often be difficult.

God’s commandment to love Him requires deep commitment and means abandoning ourselves entirely, offering our hearts and minds to serve God’s will.  We can ask for the grace to follow Christ’s example, he who offered himself up completely and said, “Not my will but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).  He also manifested his great love to all, including his enemies.  We do not get to choose our neighbors.  Loving them means being attentive to their needs, accepting their imperfections, and encouraging their hopes and aspirations.  The same attitude is needed on the path of Christian unity, with regard to one another’s different traditions.

The call to love your neighbor “as yourself” reminds us of the need to accept ourselves as we are, conscious of God’s compassionate gaze upon us, always ready to forgive.  Consider that we are God’s beloved creation.  Respect yourself.  Seek peace with yourself.  Similarly, we can each ask for the grace to love and accept our own church or community, with its failings, entrusting all things to the Father, who restores us through the Holy Spirit.

Jointly prepared and published by
Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity
Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
Day 1

A lawyer stood up to test Jesus.
“Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
(Luke 10:25)

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  This crucial question asked of Jesus by a lawyer challenges every believer in God.  It affects the meaning of our life on earth and for eternity.  Elsewhere in the Bible, Jesus gives us the ultimate definition of eternal life: “…that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).  Knowing God means discovering and doing His will in our lives.  Every person wants a life of fullness and truth, and God desires this for us, too (cf. John 10:10).  Saint Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

The existential realities of life, with divisions, selfishness, and suffering, often distance us from the quest for God.  Jesus lived the mystery of intimate communion with the Father, who desires to fill all His children with the fullness of His eternal life.  Jesus is “the Way” that leads us to the Father, our ultimate destiny.

Thus, our quest for eternal life brings us closer to Jesus, and in so doing brings us nearer to each other, strengthening our closeness on the path toward Christian unity.  Let us be open to friendship and collaboration with Christians of all churches, praying for the day when we can all stand together at the Table of the Lord.