Message for Unity Octave

PRAYER, NOT CONTROVERSY
" CATHOLICS are often forced to appear in a harsh light to those who yearn for Christian unity," states Archbishop Heenan of Liverpool in a message for the Unity Octave to the Octave Secretary. The octave begins next week, on Saturday, January 18, the Feast of St. Peter's Chair at Rome' and closes on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, January 25.
"It is hard for many of them to understand that our refusal to be associated with others in public acts of worship is not due to any lack of charity," continues the Archbishop. "It is, on the contrary, precisely because we cherish those outside the Church that we refrain from any acts which might lead them to be content with anything less than full membership of the Catholic Church.
" The Unity Octave gives Catholics the opportunity of showing their charity for all other Christians With them, we should offer our prayers that the unity for which Our Lord prayed may be brought nearer.
" This octave calls for no joint meetings or demonstrations. It is a time for prayer. No Christian can doubt that prayer will promote true charity and unity far more effectively than controversy."
BIRMINGHAM' During the octave, on January 20, the Abbot of Downside, Dom Christopher Butler, 0.S.B., is to speak at a meeting at Birmingham Central Hall. The other speakers will be the Anglican Fr. Raymond Raynes, C.R., and the secretary of the British Council of Churches, Rev. Kenneth Slack, representing the Free Churches.
The Feast of St. Peter's Chair at Rome this year will mark the 50th anniversary of the Unity Octave. The movement was begun in 1908 by an Anglican, Fr. Paul James Francis. After two years, the practice of praying for eight consecutive days for Church unity led Fr. Francis, together with all his fellow members of the Anglican Society of the Atonement, to enter the Catholic Church.
In 1951, the society was approved by the Church and took the name of the Congregation of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Assisi of the Atonement.