Bishop Larry Silva, third from left, sits among Hawaii Christian leaders at the Newman Center in the 2017 prayer service for Christian unity.
Bishop Larry Silva will represent the Catholic Church at the ecumenical Taize service in observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, 7 p.m., Jan. 25, at the Newman Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
This will be the fifth straight year the Newman Center, the hub of the university’s Catholic campus ministry, will host the annual prayer. Invited are the leaders and faithful of all Christian denominations in Hawaii including Protestant, Orthodox and Eastern rite.
Before the Newman Center adopted the service, different Christian churches on Oahu took turns hosting the event.
The theme for the 2018 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is “Your Right Hand, O Lord, Glorious in Power,” a quote from the book of Exodus 15:6.
Taize is the name of an ecumenical community of Catholics and Protestants in its namesake town of France. The Taize “prayer around the cross,” which will be incorporated in the service, lasts about an hour and includes chants, prayers, petitions, Scripture readings and periods of meditative silence.
Participants also have the opportunity to kneel and bow around a large iconographic cross displayed flat about a foot off the floor, to pray for their own personal intentions, for persecuted Christians and for healing of divisions among Christian denominations.
The Newman Center also hosts a Taize cross prayer service on Good Friday.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was started in 1908 by the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute. Pope Pius X gave his blessing to the prayer week and Pope Benedict XV in 1916 extended its observance to the universal church.
The “octave” of prayer runs from the Feast of St. Peter’s Chair on Jan. 18 to the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on Jan. 25.
For more information about the Jan. 25 prayer service, call the diocesan Office of Worship at 585-3342 or the Newman Center at 988-6222.
The Newman Center is at 1941 East West Center Road. Free parking is available at St. Francis School, 2707 Pamoa Road.
