Praying this week for Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden

Today is the final day in the octave of the week of prayer for Christian Unity. This morning the ecumenical centre will host a service led by people from Geneva's migrant churches and the "witnessing together" network. An exhibition prepared by each of the different congregations in the network will be on display in the entrance lobby at the Ecumenical Centre this week.

Meanwhile we are praying this week for countries in Scandinavia through the ecumenical prayer cycle. Countries thought of as rich and stable ... then you remember the Icelandic banking crisis and you know there is much to learn.
Later this week the World Economic Forum begins here in Switzerland, in Davos. The new WCC general secretary, who is from Norway, will attend part of it.
The week of prayer for Christian unity ends with much pointing us to reflect deeply on the spirit of unity needed in our solidarity, aid efforts, development work and particularly in terms of economic justice. Unity is not only about different families of Christianity learning to respect and understand each other, it is also about the whole of humanity working for the good of all.

We share a common earth.
We share the common joy of living,
of the grieving and of the pain.
We share the wonder of the sowing
and the harvest of our common soil.
We share the common bread in our homes.
We share the feast of the wine.
We share our common faith in Christ, our Saviour.
But we still cannot share the common table in our churches.
Why, God, why?
God of unity, let the table of reconciliation
become the true table of unity for the sake of your kingdom.
(c) Per Harling