Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - Initiatives and Experiences

Praying for Christian Unity with Catechumens

 By Mbilizi Bulambo Ghislain.(Sunday 22^nd January 2012)

 I have been involved in catechesis in Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish South B for two years and half now.  I must first agree that I was not very comfortable to conduct a session of Christian unity with catechumens. In fact, I spoke to them of the Catholic Church as the true Church with proof of its origins from the apostles. Many of these catechumens are from other Christian denomination. I felt like this topic will just confuse them.

But, we manage to gather two classes: those who have just started and those who are about to receive the sacraments. They were really keen to listen. I was commissioned by the other teachers to speak a bit about the history of our divisions. Very briefly, I spoke of the Church history highlighting the heresies of Arius, the division with Nestorius and the Coptic Church. I jumped on the great schism in 1054 with the East and then focused on the Church in the West with all the problems of the renaissance popes and the emergence of Luther and how since then, the power of division seemed to have been unleashed on the church.

I focused mainly where we went wrong. After this, I spoke of the ecumenical movement and the commitment of the Catholic Church to it as the desire to fulfill the initial plan of Christ of unity.

After this brief presentation, we explore together the theme of Christian unity this year: We will be changed by the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We zoomed in our attention on day 4 and day 5. These days are about victory over evil with good and the peace brought by the victory of Christ. We started with the Hymn We are One in the Spirit. Then the Word of God was read from Romans12: 17-21, after some silence, we also read from Ephesians2: 17-20. After this followed spontaneous prayer by most of us.

In these prayers, it was touching the way catechumens ask more for the strength to live out the insights of the topic about unity. They realize that in normal life, many of their neihgbours are not Catholics and so showing them more consideration is actually a demand of faith. Also many prayed for the change of heart that we may all realize that Christ is disgusted by our divisions. The teacher of the other class concluded with the prayer provided in the leaflet.

At the end, the catechumens ask for those leaflets about the week of the Christian unity and committed themselves to continue praying for the rest of the week for the unity of the Christian. One of the teachers who coordinates a YCS movement at Kiambu girls promised also to speak of the Christian unity to members of that movement. Thus, we ended with our session with some sense of gratitude. May the Lord change us as quick as possible so as we can be united in mind and heart.