WASHINGTON –The chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs is inviting all to celebrate the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which takes place Jan. 18-25.

The week provides an opportunity to join together and pray as Jesus did “that they may all be one (John 17:21),” said Bishop Joseph C. Bambera of Scranton, Pa.

The practice, originally called the Christian Unity Octave, was first observed in 1908 by Father Paul Wattson and Sister Lurana White, co-founders of the Society of Atonement. Today, it is a collaborative project by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches.

“This year’s theme is ‘Justice, Only Justice, You Shall Pursue’ (Deuteronomy 16:20),” Bishop Bambera explained. “It was chosen by Christians from Indonesia, highlighting the unique opportunity the call for justice plays in our ecumenical efforts.”

During the Week of Prayer in the United States, he said, “Christian communities become newly aware of their unity as they join in a common concern and a common response to an unjust reality. At the same time, confronted by these injustices, we are obliged, as Christians, to examine the ways in which we are complicit. Only by heeding Jesus’s prayer ‘that they all may be one’ can we witness to living unity in diversity. It is through our unity in Christ that we will be able to combat injustice and serve the needs of its victims.”

 For more information on the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, click here.