Service for Christian unity Jan. 18

    The Christian churches of Orleans Parish will gather at St. Joseph Catholic Church on Tulane Avenue Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. to pray for greater unity.
    Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond and Episcopal Bishop Morris K. Thompson Jr. will be co-presiders. The Very Rev. Susan M. Gaumer, rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on South Carrollton Avenue, will deliver the sermon. A reception will follow the service.
    For more than a century, Christian denominations have spent the week of Jan. 18-25 in prayer for union among Christians. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity ends on the Feast of the Conversion of the Apostle Paul.
    Father Paul Wattson and Mother Lurana White founded the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement, then an Episcopal religious community. Father Wattson’s ideal was working for Christian unity; the Church Unity Octave was his instrument.
    In 1909 Father Wattson and Mother Lurana and their followers were corporately received into the Catholic Church. The work for Christian Unity by the Society of the Atonement continued, however, as it still does today.
All Christian congregations of Orleans Parish are invited to come to the largest Catholic church in the city.