Ahead of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, churches plan services

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

Some Catholic parishes in the Worcester diocese are participating in the international Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, being commemorated Jan. 18-25. This year’s theme is, “There is one body, and one Spirit, just as you are called to the one hope of your calling” (Eph 4:4).

Ecumenical services are scheduled at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in West Boylston and St. Anne and St. Patrick Parish in Sturbridge. In Charlton, clergy are preaching at each other’s churches and planning peace vigils.

Father Richard F. Trainor, temporary administrator of Our Lady of Good Counsel, said he planned an ecumenical service for 2 p.m. Jan. 18 to begin the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. He said Oakdale United Methodist Church and Freedom Worship Center, also in West Boylston, are scheduled to participate. Attendees are to be given prayers and meditations to use on their own the rest of the week. The service and take-home materials come from national publishers.

Week of Prayer materials for the United States are published by the Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute, a ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, the website geii.org explains. GEII adapts international texts prepared by Vatican and World Council of Churches representatives.

St. Anne and St. Patrick Parish and Shrine in Sturbridge is hosting an ecumenical service at 7 p.m. Jan. 21 in its St. Joachim Chapel, with refreshments afterwards.

Also participating are Bethlehem Lutheran Church and the Federated Church in Sturbridge, Brookfield Congregational Church, and Elm Street Congregational UCC and Holy Trinity Episcopal in Southbridge, a press release says.

“We are honored to host this service and to pray together for the healing and peace our world so deeply needs,” Assumptionist Father Salvator Musande, pastor of St. Anne and St. Patrick, said in the press release. “This gathering beautifully expresses what Christ calls us to – unity in spirit, compassion in service, and love across all denominations.”

“Our churches have built strong bonds of fellowship through shared worship and service,” commented Pastor Dan Purtell of Bethlehem Lutheran. “This week of prayer strengthens those bonds, inviting us to live more deeply into God’s vision of unity and love for all people.”

“When we come together in humility and hope, we make space for God to work among us in powerful ways,” said Pastor Dave Cote of the Federated Church.

“We are united in Christ, despite our differences,” Father Robert A. Grattaroti, pastor of St. Joseph’s in Charlton, told The Catholic Free Press. “Let’s focus on what unites us. … We’re all children of God. Jesus came to save the entire world.

“We believe the fullness … Jesus intended resides in the Church which he established … the Catholic Church. Anything that unites us and brings us closer to God our Creator is good – for us, for the world, for our families, for society.”

Father Grattaroti said St. Joseph’s was participating in “pulpit exchanges,” with clergy preaching at each other’s churches, when he came in 1989, and the practice has continued since then.

This year, on Jan. 18, the Rev. Shannan Hudgins, senior pastor of the Federated Church of Charlton, is to preach at St. Joseph’s 10 a.m. Mass, and Deacon W. Steve Miller of St. Joseph’s is to preach at the Federated Church’s 10:30 a.m. service.

Father Grattaroti also mentioned peace vigils being organized by clergy in a local ecumenical group.

Pastor John Lucy, of the Charlton City United Methodist Church, said the first vigil, which he is planning with some laypeople, falls within the Week of Prayer. Participants gather at the Federated Church at 7 p.m. Jan. 21, and form a candlelight procession to the town common. He plans to give a short message and there are to be prayers, hymns, Scripture readings and a witness from someone who has worked for peace in some way.

St. Joseph’s, the Federated Church and First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Dudley are to take turns planning the other vigils this year.

Pastor Lucy said the division in the United States in the most recent presidential election year showed the need for such vigils, which he would like to continue “as long as we need peace.”
Ecumenism “should be promoted and revived,” said Msgr. Peter R. Beaulieu, director of mission integration and pastoral care at St. Vincent Hospital, where he met Greek Orthodox people who helped him bring together local Greek Orthodox and Catholic Christians. “It’s also the mind and heart of Christ that all be one.”