Witnesses to Unity

A Workshop for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Cosponsored with the Liberty Ministerial Alliance

In these times, more than ever, we need to find and emulate individuals whose lives bear witness to the unity that God wants for God’s family.

Today we will hear three stories about individuals who have stepped up and made genuine efforts to understand “the other” and helped others to live in harmony and peace.

Their stories — two Northern Irish women, a Muslim and a Catholic ministering among non-Catholics — will challenge us to move beyond wringing our hands at circumstances that divide us and seek out “the other” as a first step to clearing up misunderstandings and healing divisions.

We’ll hear from and about:

1. Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for their efforts to peacefully resolve the violent conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
2. Eyyup Esen, a Turkish Muslim who as leader of the Dialogue Institute of Kansas City and the Raindrop Foundation has bridged religious, cultural and ethnic divides.
3. Glenmary Brother Craig Digmann whose decades of work in rural Appalachia has broken down barriers between Protestant and Catholic communities.

After hearing these stories, we will discuss what we can learn from their stories and apply it to our own present divisions. We will discuss how we motivate ourselves and our congregations to work for great unity.

Background

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is an ecumenical Christian observance celebrated internationally; and since 1908 has been observed in the northern hemisphere between the feasts of the Conversion of St. Paul and the Confession of St. Peter (January 18-25).

For the 2025 celebrations, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches commissioned the brothers and sisters of the ecumenical monastic community of Bose in northern Italy to prepare materials. Read more about this week here.

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