‘Light from Light for Light’
The Catholic Odhrán Pastoral Area and the Church of Ireland Nenagh Union of parishes invite you to join them, with Christians of all traditions, in an ecumenical prayer service for Christian Unity Week, in St Patrick’s Church, Puckane, on Thursday January 22, at 7pm. All are welcome!
The service will be based on resources prepared by the faithful of the Armenian Apostolic Church, part of the Oriental Orthodox tradition, along with their brothers and sisters of the Armenian Catholic, and Evangelical Churches. Armenia became the first nation in the world to adopt Christianity as its state religion in 301AD, well before the Roman Empire’s embrace of Christianity. The resources have been distributed by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
The title of the service, ‘Light from Light for Light’, is inspired by the Nicene Creed, whose 1700th anniversary we commemorated last year. In it we declare Christ is ‘light from light’, and we add ‘for light’, because Christ shines God’s light into this troubled world, bringing us into loving communion with each other and with God. The service is adapted from the ‘Sunrise Service’, one of the daily prayer hours of the Armenian Church, compiled by their great 12th century patriarch St Nersess ‘the Gracious’.
We will share the light of Christ, as the flame is passed on from the Paschal candle to candles held by the congregation, filling the church with light. And we will affirm the faith we share by saying together the Nicene creed in its original form, before the ‘filioque’ schism.
‘UNITY IN DIVERSITY’
Joc Sanders from the Church of Ireland Nenagh Union says: “God surely loves the diversity of our Christian traditions, just as he loves the wonderful diversity of life he has made. We do not all need to worship in the same way, nor even hold exactly the same beliefs. But when we gather to pray together as Christians of different traditions, I believe the Spirit urges us to the unity Christ prays for, which is unity in diversity. We have much to learn from each other. We need each other to be salt and yeast to build God’s kingdom in the world.”
Echoing him, Deborah O’Driscoll, Minister for Catechetics in the Odhrán Pastoral Area, comments: “God calls us to unity, not uniformity. Each of our Christian traditions has its own gifts to share, and when we come together, we enrich one another through the love of Christ. Let us celebrate the diversity God has made and recognise that, though we may worship differently, we are one family in faith. Unity doesn’t mean thinking the same way—it means walking together in love, listening, and learning from one another as we strive to build God’s kingdom together. We are better together than apart.”