The theme for this year’s Week of Prayer has been “You shall love the Lord your God…and your neighbour as yourself”, focusing on the parable of the Good Samaritan.
An ecumenical team from Burkina Faso, assisted by the local Chemin Neuf Community, prepared a series of texts for the week which was approved by an international group representing the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission.
Christians make up only 20 per cent of Burkina Faso’s population, and have faced mounting threats in recent years.
“This year it is an African community, a persecuted Christian community, a minority Christian community in a very difficult situation,” said Mgr Juan Usma Gomez of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.
“Perhaps the most important thing is that a persecuted minority Community is inviting us to pray for love, loving our neighbours, loving all those who are near to us, inspiring the Good Samaritan passage.”
Religious leaders across the Philippines marked the week with a series of ecumenical events from 18 to 25 January, emphasising the call for all Christians “to love God and neighbour in the midst of crisis, as exemplified by the story of the Good Samaritan”.
A joint statement on 18 January, signed by Bishop Mel Rey Uy of Lucena, who chairs the Catholic Bishops’ Episcopal Commission on Ecumenical Affairs, and the acting general secretary of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Minnie Anne Mata-Calub, said that in the week of prayer, all the people are urged “to look beyond our walls and comforts, and enlarge the space of our tent as a space of communion, a place of participation, and a foundation for ecumenical mission”.
“The Samaritan in the gospel passage, however, showed that this love and compassion must be extended to all those in need, dismantling any form of barriers,” the statement said.
“In today’s time of fragmentations, wars, strife, and environmental destruction, this mandate is even extended to the whole created Earth.”
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