What is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity? It is a week in which the different Christian churches, including the Catholic Church, focus on praying for the unity of all those who believe in Christ and have been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Why pray for unity? The example comes from the same Jesus who prayed to his Father so that his disciples would remain united: "That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." (Jn 17, 21).
However, when the controversies and clashes were consummated and divided Christianity into opposing churches, the urgency for the return to visible unity became a shout and that Gethsemane prayer became a necessity of the separate communities. There is a long tradition in the Christian Churches to pray for unity. The liturgical texts of the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant communities have beautiful prayers to ask the Spirit to preserve or return the unity of the Church.
Let us pray, so that we begin to recognize ourselves as children of the same Father, understanding the Church as a body made up of many members, whose only head is Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:12-17)
"They showed us unusual kindness" (Acts 28:2) is the theme of this week of prayer for unity 2020.