SANTA ROSA DE LIMA ECUMENICAL SERVICE – Prayer gathering draws Christian Churches together

Marco Carvalho

The Chinese Section of Santa Rosa de Lima Secondary School will once again play host to the Prayer Service for Christian Unity, an annual ecumenical celebration that draws together worshippers from different Christian denomination. The observance is part of the broader Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Traditionally observed from 18 to 25 January in the northern hemisphere, this yearly event invites Christians worldwide to unite in prayer and reflection. Macau is not an exception. This year’s ecumenical service will take place this Saturday, January 18th on Santa Rosa de Lima’s premises, in Rua de Santa Clara. Bishop Stephen Lee Bun-sang will officiate the prayer meeting, alongside local representatives of the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church and the Baptist Church.

Inspired by a passage – “Do you believe this?” –  in the Gospel of John, this year’s prayers and reflections were prepared by the monastic community of Bose, in northern Italy, with insights and resources jointly published by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity and the World Council of Churches.

Later today, Saint Mark’s Anglican Church, in Rua de Pedro Nolasco da Silva, will hold a talk on ecumenical dialogue. The lecture brings to Macau the director of Divinity School of Chung Chee College, Francis Yip Ching-wah. An associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Mr. Yip will address the reason why Christian unity remains such an important endeavor for Catholics and Christians alike.

The ecumenical movement seeks to recover the apostolic sense of the early church for unity in diversity. The perspective of a unified Christian, global faith largely precedes the apostolic foundation of the Church and has its roots, father Daniel Ribeiro recalls, in the very last prayer Jesus uttered before being arrested, in the Garden of Gethsemane: “The last and longest prayer of Jesus in any of the Gospels is known has the High Priestly Prayer. In the Gospel of John 17:21-23, Jesus says: ‘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.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one –I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity’, the Parish Vicar of the Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lady recalls. “In his last prayer, Jesus prays for the unity of his followers. There is a very strong desire that those who follow him might pray as one. In his last prayer, just before he was arrested and condemned to death, he prays for Christian unity. This is quite relevant”, the Brazilian priest claims.

Currently celebrated under the name of ‘Week of Prayer for Christian Unity’, the ‘octave of Christian Unity’ was first observed in 1908 by Paul Watson, a north-American Episcopalian priest who later converted to Catholicism. The initiative favors the return to Christian unity, shattered in the past by schisms and ruptures. The annual ecumenical observance is an invitation do draw on a common heritage and to enter more deeply into the faith that unites all Christians, as it was envisioned by Christ himself: “In the beginning the Church was one, with the apostles acting in communion. Five hundred years ago, with Martin Luther, the Church ended up divided. Today many religious denominations remain. This huge number of Christian churches, this division is certainly not Christ’s will, since Jesus himself prayed for the unity of the Church”, Father Daniel Ribeiro argues.

This year is particularly important for the modern ecumenical movement, as it will mark the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council. This commemoration provides a rare opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the common faith of Christians as expressed in the Nicene Creed, the creed formulated at the Council of Nicaea.