Day 3, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Day 3, The Holy Spirit gives us the Word (John 15: 26).

Scripture
Joel 2:26-29, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.
Psalm 104, You renew the face of the earth.
1 Corinthians 12:1-4,12-13, No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.
John 15:26-27,16: 12-13, The Spirit of truth will testify on my behalf.

Meditation
We are one in the Spirit. All have been nourished by the one Spirit. Is it in the same Spirit that we have been baptized into one body? It is the Holy Spirit who speaks and who gives us the crucial energy, the inner power to speak, to announce and proclaim together the good news of the kingdom of God. Our desire is to live in the Spirit, as a community on the pilgrimage towards unity. If we live according to the Spirit, we desire that which is of the Spirit. And the desire of the Spirit is life and peace. The Holy Spirit impels us to act. We must break the different forms of silence which get in our way and hold us back: chaotic situations, human division, all those things which offend the dignity of persons and of peoples. How can the word be freed? Where can we find the strength to sow a seed of life, of hope, of openness? How can we break away from all that closes us in and immobilizes us? The Spirit which is poured out upon all flesh drives us to prophesy. It is the Spirit which recreates us in renewing the face of the earth. It is the Spirit which makes us cry ‘Jesus is Lord’. It is the Spirit which witnesses to the Lord and enables us to become courageous witnesses. It is the Spirit whom God sends into our hearts, who makes us proclaim ‘Abba, Father’ and who thus reveals to us our true identity: we are no longer slaves but sons and daughters of God.

Prayer
Come Holy Spirit - may we know the gift of your presence on our pilgrimage towards unity. Give us the inner strength to become instruments of joy and hope in the world. May your spirit make us one. May your voice give us the appropriate words to confess together our God and Lord and to break the silence which destroys. Spirit of life and of love, renew us in unity. Amen.