2016-05-04 13:20:00

(Vatican Radio) The bishops of England and Wales have urged Catholics to support a ‘week of prayer’ initiative being promoted by the Church of England during the week leading up to Pentecost Sunday.

The Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury and York have written to every Church of England parish priest across the country, suggesting ways in which they can engage with the initiative entitled ‘Thy Kingdom Come.

The week of prayer from May 8th-15th culminates in ‘Beacon events’ to be held in half a dozen cathedrals around the country over Pentecost weekend to pray for the renewal of the Holy Spirit.

To find out more about the ecumenical impact of this Anglican initiative, Philippa Hitchen spoke to Fr Christopher Thomas, general secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales….

Listen:

Fr Christopher says the Archbishops of Canterbury and York wrote to the bishops’ conference explaining about the initiative as a sort of novena before Pentecost, when the Church remembers the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and how they were sent out to proclaim the Gospel to the world.

He says the Catholic bishops wanted to lend their support and were hoping it will develop as an ecumenical project and as a parallel initiative to the work that’s done in Christian Unity Week in January. “If you think of Christian Unity week as a reflection on the unity of the Church ‘ad intra’, within ourselves”, he says, then this event could be seen as “a combined work ‘ad extra’, out into the world of today”.