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Church unity Octave.

The Church Unity Octave is observed every year from the feast of St. Peter's Chair, January 18, to that of the conversion of St. Paul, January 25.
It was approved and blessed by the late Pope Pius X in 1909. His Holiness Pope Benedict XV, by a Papal Brief, dated February 15, 1916, extended its observance of the Universal Church enriching it with Indulgences.
(Catholic Missions Vol 13-14 January 1919).

Prayer:

•    Ant. That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that Thou has sent me.
      ℣. I say to thee, that thou art Peter,
      ℟. And upon this rock I will build my Church.
      Let us pray: Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst say to Thine Apostles: peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, look not upon my sins, but upon the faith of Thy Church; and vouchsafe unto Her that peace and unity which is agreeable to Thy will: Who livest and reignest God forever and ever. Amen.

NB. It is also recommended that one decade of the Rosary (at least) be said for the particular intention of each day; also that Holy Communion be received as often as possible during the Octave, daily if possible, certainly on the First or Last Day of the Octave in order to obtain the Plenary Indulgence. Source: Catholic World, Volume 106 Paulist Fathers, 1918

Traditional Version:
(Father Paul of Graymoor began the Chair of Unity Octave. By 1913 a set of Intentions for each day of the Octave had become fixed)

Jan 18. The return of all the "other sheep" to the one fold of St. Peter, the one Shepherd.
Jan 19. The return of all Oriental Separatists to Communion with the Apostolic See.
Jan 20. The submission of Anglicans to the Authority of the Vicar of Christ.
Jan 21. That the Lutherans and all other Protestants of Continental Europe may find their way "Back to Holy Church."
Jan 22. That Christians in America may become one in Communion with the Chair of St. Peter.
Jan 23. The return to the sacraments of lapsed Catholics.
Jan 24. The Conversion of the Jews.
Jan 25. The Missionary conquest of the world for Christ.

Source: the Living Church Vol 141. 1960

While a great part of mankind looks to its statesmen to devise ways and means by which the diversified and in some instances anti-Christian theories of government of the Allied Nations might be amalgamated and directed towards outlawing future wars, Catholics see in the divinely established unity of the Church the only road by which the concerted action of the true followers of Christ can lead the world to a lasting peace. We possess today a prayer movement for Church Unity, the purpose of which is to gather into the one true Church all those who have unfortunately withdrawn from the Catholic religion and to unite them against the prevailing forces of Liberalism and Materialism. For, as His Holiness Pope Benedict XV remarked in an Apostolic Brief dated Feb. 25, 1916, "in the Unity of Faith the foremost characteristic of the Truth shines forth, and it is thus that the Apostle Paul exhorts the Ephesians to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, by proclaiming that 'there is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism."" Noting the approval extended to this Octave of Prayer by the Catholic Hierarchy, he asserted that “with a glad heart, therefore, we have heard from the Society which is called 'of the Atonement,' established in New York, that prayers have been proposed to be recited from the Feast of the Chair of Blessed Peter at Rome to the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, in order that this aim of Unity might be obtained from the Lord and at the same time we rejoice that these prayers, blessed by Pope Pius the Tenth, of recent memory, and approved by the Bishops of America, have been circulated far and wide through the United States."

At no time in the past nineteen hundred years has the pendulum of history registered such terrible spiritual, moral, and material catastrophe as has befallen mankind in this tragic moment. For as the old world lies in fragments, the future of Christian civilization in Europe and the rest of the world hangs in the balance. Even the joy of hard-won victory, accompanied by the dawning hope of a new day of peace and reconstruction, cannot offset the knowledge that the progress of the human race in the present confusion of ideologies has been a progress without God and even against God; without Christ and even against Christ. If mankind had but listened to the Church, there is little doubt that the chaos of this age, resulting from a weakening of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the darkening in men's minds of the light of moral principles, could have been avoided.

Our generation is reaping the woeful consequences of an incredulity which has succeeded in excluding Christ from modern life, especially from public life. The deep spiritual crisis that has overthrown the sound principles of private and public morality is the result of cleavage from the Church in the course of centuries and the divorcing of civil power from every kind of dependence on a Supreme Being. Cut off from the age-old teaching authority of the Catholic Church, many of the separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow the central dogma of Christianity, the Divinity of the Saviour, and have hastened thereby the advance of spiritual and moral decay.

Now, in this hour of perhaps irrevocable decisions, the Church may well be envisioned as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, appealing to her wandering children to be united with her in the unity of faith and worship, so that their return to the Christian way of life might be a bulwark against the menace of modern pagan teaching. She alone, in the words of St. Augustine, "is the holy Church, the one Church, the true Church, the Church which strives against all heresies." She alone fully recognizes the widespread atheistic and anti-Christian tendency rampant in the world, threatening to destroy all the ancient Christian institutions, the life of which consists in a supernatural principle, and to erect on their ruins and with their remains an illusory millennium of universal happiness, a new order which would rest on the quicksands of changeable and ephemeral standards contingent upon the selfish interests of groups and individuals.

Already, through the mysterious workings of divine Providence, this invitation extended by the Church has received long awaited welcome from many who now perceive the inability of all human efforts to replace the laws of God and the unifying and elevating influence of Christ's love. But this is not enough. For, however much this hour of disillusionment has become an hour of grace, "a passage of the Lord” for some, sincere Catholics must humbly recognize their grave responsibility to work and pray that the tireless and salutary occupation of the Church in the spiritual and religious re-education of mankind might bear fruit in the reestablishment of the Christian heritage over the whole world. On the minds of all those who seek refuge from the vortex of error and anti-Christian movements they should impress the words Our Holy Father addressed to the College of Cardinals on June 2, 1944. “How much more potent and efficacious would be the influence of Christian thought and Christian life on the moral sub-structure of the future plans for peace and social reconstruction, if there were not this vast division and dispersal of religious confessions, that in the course of time have detached themselves from Mother Church! Who, today, can fail to recognize what substance of faith, what a genuine power of resistance to anti-religious influence is lost in so many groups as a result of separation."

As never before, the collaboration of the laity in the Apostolate of the Hierarchy must have as its central theme Christ resplendent in His Divine Kingship, if He is to "grant the gifts of peace and unity to all nations." For “in the recognition of the royal prerogatives of Christ and in the return of individuals and of society to the law of His truth and of His love lies the only way of salvation." If Christian thought is to succeed in maintaining and supporting the work of restoration in individual, social and international life, then all who are working for a plan that does not conflict with the religious and moral content of Christian civilization must acknowledge that the Church which Christ founded on earth is the infallible spokesman on faith and morals for the whole world. For the Catholic Church alone possesses, in her infallible pronouncements, the fullness of the principles of Christian morality in all its ramifications. Because of the special assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to the Apostles and their successors, the episcopate united to the Roman Pontiff, she alone teaches men to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. Further, only the Church possesses, from her very institution, a visible unity in doctrine, government and worship. Therefore, only she can establish an organic unity of all men-a supernatural union based on an all-embracing love deeply felt and practiced, rather than a unity which is exclusively human, external, superficial, and by that very fact, weak.

One of the most efficacious means for assuring a just and lasting peace is a Catholic Unity of all those who, seeking brotherly communion in Christ, humbly submit themselves and obey the Vicar of Christ as teacher and ruler of the Church. That is the end of the Prayer Octave for Church Unity founded by Father Paul James Francis, S.A., in 1908. It seeks to restore to God the honor denied Him for so many centuries and to acquire for men the fullness of the Christian heritage which alone can determine the most firm foundation of true peace, that interior peace which cannot be found except by coming close to the spiritual light of Bethlehem's cave.

Catholics especially must unite with Christ who prayed to His Heavenly Father "that they all may be one, even as thou, Father, in me and I in thee; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou has sent me." And it is incumbent on them to make known the observance of this Octave to all others who sincerely seek eternal salvation, the promotion of the temporal welfare of peoples, their true prosperity, order, and tranquillity. During this Church Unity Octave, from Jan. 18 to Jan. 25, all should pray especially that God the Father may send His Holy Spirit to direct and guide statesmen, that He might inspire their thoughts, their feelings and deliberations, making them spiritually and materially vigorous and firm against obstacles, mistrust, and peril, so that as a result of their deliberations, a new order under the patronage of Christ the King may be established which will lead many wanderers back to the Unity of supernatural faith and love as found in His Mystical Body. For, says St. Ambrose, "great is the glory of justice; for she, existing rather for the good of others than of self, is an aid to the bond of union and fellowship amongst us. She holds so high a place that she has all things laid under her authority ... but the Church, as it were, is the outward form of Justice, she is the common right of all. For all in common she prays, for all in common she works, in the temptation of all she is tried ... For this reason, Paul has made Christ to be foundation, so that we may build upon Him the works of Justice."

Source: GREGORY FIGUEROA, S.A. Atonement Seminary, Washington, D. C. The American Ecclesiastical Review, Volume 114 Herman Joseph Heuser Catholic University of America Press, 1946

Source: Wikipedia

"We must pray and do penance and hope in God and His Holy Mother; for the saints say: From the day on which Christ died souls must be bought by blood. If only, by sacrificing my own life, I could bring all people to know and love God as He deserves. But let God's holy will be done in all things." - Blessed Peter Donders (1809 - 1887) Quotes of the Day

"Born October 27, 1809, at Tilburg in North Brabant, was obliged to spend his boyhood in privation and self-denial. From his very early years his heart was drawn toward the priesthood. But three considerable obstacles stood in the way; viz., his parents were very poor, he had poor health, and possessed but little talent. So much the greater, therefore, were Peter's piety, his purity of morals, and his confidence in God. To help his parents he learned the weaver's trade. When he was twenty-two he was received into the boys' seminary at St. Michiels-Gastel as a servant, with permission to avail himself of whatever instruction he could get. It was no small humiliation for a student who was so much older than his fellows to be almost last in everything; but his strong will and his confidence in prayer won him the victory over all difficulties. Twice he asked admission into a religious body and was each time refused. After six years he was admitted into the priests' seminary.

Some years after his ordination to the priesthood his desire to work as a missionary in foreign lands was gratified. On September 2, 1842, he landed at Paramaribo, capital of Dutch Guiana, which mission was then in the care of Dutch secular priests. Great patience and self-sacrifice was required to protect the 4000 Catholics scattered throughout the colony from the dangers which threatened their faith and morals in consequence of their heathen environment and the enervating climate. Donders paid special attention to the young, rightly foreseeing that it is easier to protect them from vice than to reclaim them when once in its power. When yellow fever raged at Paramaribo in 1851, he won the admiration of the whole colony by his heroism, in caring for both the spiritual and the corporal welfare of the sick, nearly falling a victim of his vocation.

Batavia, a remote place in the colony, had been set apart by the government for the residence of lepers. In 1856 Donders undertook the pastoral care of this difficult post, and persevered here for thirty years, shirking no sacrifice to be all things to his poor flock and to win all to Christ. When the mission of Dutch Guiana was adopted by the Redemptorists in 1865, Donders asked to be received into the Congregation. What was denied to the young petitioner thirty years before was gladly granted to the deserving and saintly missionary. After a year of noviceship at Paramaribo he took up again his post at Batavia.

“There was never a prince, perhaps," we read in a sketch of his life, “who, crowned with fame and splendid success, entered his capital in triumph after his victories and found so great an overflow of joy and happiness as did Donders when, surrounded by his beloved lepers, he again directed his steps to his poor little church.”

He went forth to his work with renewed courage and energy. At last, seventy-seven years of age, he laid down his arms to receive, on January 6, 1887, the reward of his holy and mortified life."

Source: The Holiness of the Church in the Nineteenth Century: Saintly Men and Women by Fr. Konstantin Kempf 1916

Rev Eugene Joseph McGuinness

2nd Bishop of Raleigh, NC (1937-1944)

"A Bishop is the supreme ecclesiastical ruler of the Diocese. Bishops are successors of the Apostles as the Pope is the Successor of St. Peter. They govern their flocks, in the name of God, as representatives of Christ; they are not delegates of the Holy See, though they are subject to its authority. They experience their own powers by virtue of their office. They can note act against common law; but subject to this a Bishop can enact those laws which he considers for the good of his Diocese, and he is in the first instance in all ecclesiastical trials. He has the direction of his clergy, the conduct of divine worship, the administration of ecclesiastical property, building of churches, erection of parishes. It is the duty of Bishops to enforce the observance of Canon law, safeguard the faith, and correct abuses. Bishops are bound to reside in the Diocese and are to preach in person. They offer Masses for the people on prescribed days, and as the first opportunity offers, they complete the pastoral visitation of the Diocese.
[...]
In the centuries-old history of the Catholic Episcopate, men of faith and men without faith have alike paid tribute to that noble succession of priestly leaders who have ever shared the lot of the people entrusted to their care.

From that pulpit shall be defended the sanctity of marriage, the dignity and responsibility of marriage, the dignity and responsibility of parenthood, the loving care of little children in the holiness of home life. There will be expounded the conscientious duty of a faithful laborer and his right to a fair share in the product to his work that he may care well for those he loves. Yet, on the other hand, there will be defended, the right of private property and wealth rightly gained be safeguarded, in the possession of its owner, while he is taught that over what he needs for prudent provision for himself and his loved ones, his possession is a stewardship from God for which his charity must answer. Such the preaching of a Catholic Bishop.

This attitude of a Catholic Bishop is the Church's guarantee to the State of the fidelity and loyalty of the Catholic people to their duties, both as citizens and Christians. These significance, so heartening in these distressing times, make clear why Bishops, priests, and people, led by a Cardinal of Holy Church, have flocked to your City of Raleigh for the installation to a new Bishop latest proof of the vitality in the life and work of the Church of Christ."

Monsignor Corrigan, January 29, 1938 on the Eve of the installation of Bishop McGuinness. Source: The Bulletin