The new book, ‘Father, may they be one…’, by the Dombes Group was published on 2 January 2026. Some members commented personally on what the prayer for unity meant according to Father Couturier. Anne-Cathy Graber, a sister in the community, took part in the exercise.
‘Lord Jesus, You who prayed that all may be one, we pray for Christian unity’: to pray for unity is to enter into the prayer of Another who precedes me. In other words, even if I do not know how to pray for unity (through forgetfulness, discouragement or indifference), another watches over us… and prays. Whatever happens, with this prayer from John 17, ‘something’ is given: Christ does not resign himself to the division, or even the dislocation, of his community.
This prayer is therefore not a gentle melody asking for comfortable unity. No… It inspires resistance against all discouragement, against the ‘what’s the point?’ attitude in the face of a Body of Christ that sometimes no longer shows that it is one body, the body of the Holy One of God.
‘[…] Christian unity, as you will it, by the means you will’: praying for Christian unity gives free rein to God’s imagination! For the challenge is to accept to enter into a different logic, a different way of thinking and acting than my own. This prayer protects me from self-centredness because it causes a reversal of my thoughts, my logic, my sense of ecclesial diplomacy… It then brings me into God’s creative freedom!
‘May your Spirit grant us the grace to experience the pain of separation, to see our sin…’: for a long time, I did not understand this request, sometimes discerning in it only the risk of Christian masochism. Today, I see it as the antidote to the ‘accustomed soul’ that Charles Péguy describes so well. Indeed, over the years, it is possible that I have become accustomed to a form of ‘peaceful coexistence in division’. I may have ended up content with a situation of statu quo… quite polite, of course! This request ‘to see our sin’ then dislodges me from any self-justification: we have all sinned against the unity of the Body of Christ. I then understand that it is quite possible that I myself have participated in the ‘scandal’ of division.
‘… and to hope beyond all hope…’: asking for this hope that goes ‘beyond’ reminds me that the request to be “one” is not for the sake of being stronger or more ‘compliant’ with an ecclesial project. The challenge is this ‘beyond’ ourselves, beyond an ‘ecclesial insularity’: to hope for those who can no longer do so; to hope ‘beyond’ means to resist the forces of death and dislocation that threaten humanity and creation.
‘Amen!’