Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2024

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2024

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (WPCU) takes place each year from the 18 to 25 January. This special week provides an opportunity to focus our prayers on Christian unity, as well as speak about and experience Christian unity personally, in our village, town or county as well as engage with what happens at a national level.

This year the theme ‘You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbour as yourself’ (Lk 10:27) has come from an ecumenical team from Burkina Faso, facilitated by the local Chemin Neuf Community (CCN). They have reflected on the familiar story of the Good Samaritan, and all are encouraged to Go and do likewise.

It is a story about crossing boundaries that calls our attention to the bonds that unite the whole human family. Brothers and sisters from the Catholic Archdiocese of Ouagadougou, Protestant Churches, ecumenical bodies and the CCN in Burkina Faso collaborated generously in drafting the prayers and reflections.

More Here

Resources for the Week Here

The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the bestknown passages of Scripture, yet one that never seems to lose its power to challenge indifference to suffering and to inspire solidarity. It is a story about crossing boundaries that calls our attention to the bonds that unite the whole human family.

In choosing this passage of Scripture for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the churches of Burkina Faso have invited us to join with them in a process of self-reflection as they consider what it means to love our neighbour in the midst of a security crisis. Communities in the British-Irish context may be less vulnerable to acts of mass violence than in Burkina Faso, but there are still many living with the memory and/or the threat of serious violence, centred on issues of identity and belonging. There are also groups within communities, including people from ethnic minority backgrounds and people seeking asylum, who feel particularly vulnerable to violence or being displaced by the threat of violence.