WEEK OF PRAYER — Archbishop James Weisgerber is joined by church leaders from across Winnipeg for the opening of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. (Buchok photo)
‘We are all called to unite’:
Weisgerber
By James Buchok
WINNIPEG — Archbishop James Weisgerber and the Archdiocese of
Winnipeg opened the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Jan. 22 at Holy
Ghost Church, welcoming church leaders representing a spectrum of Christians
faiths and their faithful. The ecumenical worship service initiated the
annual week-long, city-wide celebration.
“Tonight, here and now, we are all called to unite,” Weisgerber
said. “We need to remember just before his death, Jesus prayed
for us, that we would be one as God the Father is one with Jesus.”
The theme for this year’s Week of Prayer — “We will
all be changed by the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor
15:51-58) — was
chosen by the Christian churches and communities in Poland. Holy Ghost
Church was established as a Polish church in 1899 and continues serving
Winnipeg’s Polish Catholics.
Pastor Rev. Maciej Pajak, OMI, welcomed the assembly, saying as the
faithful pray for and strive for unity, “we are reminded that the
unity for which we pray is not merely a comfortable notion of friendliness
and co-operation. We need to open ourselves to each other, to offer gifts
to, and receive gifts from one another, so that we might truly enter
into the new life in Christ, which is the only true victory.
“There is room for everyone in God’s plan of salvation,” Pajak
said. “Through his death and resurrection, Christ embraces all.
The use of our diverse gifts in common service to humanity makes visible
our unity in Christ.”
As an offering of a sign of peace, the assembled participated in the
Polish Christmas custom of sharing a special wafer called the oplatek.
Each person was given a wafer to be shared by breaking off a piece of
another person’s
wafer and eating it. This sharing of the wafer expresses unity, love
and forgiveness.
In his homily, Weisgerber said that Paul wrote “that the resurrection
we share in baptism is only a seed and what God has planned for the end
of times, the resurrection, the ultimate act of God’s power is
going to transform us completely.
“The unity of the church is the work of God. God is the one who will
make us one and that will happen at the end of time,” Weisgerber
said. “That is the work of God and the promise of God, a promise
we need to trust. No matter what our struggles, weaknesses or divisions,
in the end, by the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we will
be changed, we will know God and we will know each other.
“This week is more important than any other week because unity comes
to us only through God,” the archbishop said. “God has promised
victory and we know that victory is ours if we stay with God. We are
no longer enemies as we once were, but are we friends? Do we just live
next to each other? How can we do faith sharing together, Bible study
together?”
Weisgerber said it is God who creates unity, “but it is also God
who asks us to do whatever we can — that we may be one so that
the world may be one.”
The opening celebration was followed with services over the next seven evenings at Dakota House, which hosted a maturing adults service, Jubilee Mennonite Church, First Lutheran Church, Charleswood United Church, an ecumenical youth ministry leaders service at Sherwood Park Lutheran, St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church and Holy Family Ukrainian Catholic Church.
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