Christian Unity. Day Six: Walking Beyond Barriers

Ordinary Time: January 23rd

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Day Six: Walking Beyond Barriers

Walking with God means walking beyond barriers that divide and damage the children of God. The biblical readings on this day look at various ways in which human barriers are overcome, culminating in St Paul’s teaching that “As many of you were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Vatican Resources

Night Office - The Spirit of Unity by Fr. James Quinn S.J.

(from an article in the Clergy Review January 1987.)

The spirit of unity

If we are to grow together into the fullness of unity, we must first want unity. We must want it, not for our own glory but in humble obedience to Christ.

We should want other Christians to be one with us because we miss their presence and feel somehow incomplete without them. We must see them, not as rivals or strangers, still less as enemies, but as fellow-pilgrims who belong to us in a very real sense, through our spiritual kinship with them by baptism.

There should be a spirit of forgiveness where we may think that other Christians have wronged us. There should be a spirit of repentance for our own sins against other Christians.

Above all, we should not live in the past but in the reality of the present, and in hope of a more Christian future.

The Eucharist and Christian unity

The Church is essentially a communion of faith, hope and love. It is a communion with Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as a communion with all its members in the Body of Christ.

Baptism is the basic, initial sacrament of Christian unity. It establishes a sacramental bond among all who have been baptized.

Holy Communion is the crowning sacrament of Christian unity, setting the seal on perfect unity.

The supernatural communion which is the Church must be seen as a true community in itself, but also as a community seeking to welcome into its unity the whole family of mankind.