On Friday, March 1 at 2 p.m. in St. Olaf Lutheran Church there will be a very special gathering in Devils Lake, a meeting in union with thousands of other Christian women (AND men) to pray for the world – our world! All praying at the same time around the world. It is the World Day of Prayer and Devils Lake churches, like St. Olaf, have been taking turns year after year to pray for our world and acknowledge a specific, designated country each year.
This year the country whose people have put together and designed the service and materials are the people of Palestine. Work on this project was accomplished and ready long before their country was embroiled in the present violent conflict we hear about on our news cycle each and every day, now.
They definitely need our prayer now, perhaps more than ever.
The following information is provided on the WDP website which includes the history of the World Day of Prayer and it’s purpose.
“An ecumenical group of Palestinian Christian women have prayed and reflected together over the past several years to respond to the invitation to write the 2024 program for the World Day of Prayer. Their theme is “I beg you, bear with one another in love.” Based on Ephesians 4:1-7.
Promotes justice and equality for women through prayer, partnerships service and celebrations.
World Day of Prayer is a worldwide, ecumenical movement of Christian women of many traditions who come together to observe a common day of prayer each year, and who, in many countries, have a continuing relationship in prayer and service.
- It is initiated and carried out by women in more than 170 countries and regions.
- It is symbolized by an annual day of celebration observed on the first Friday in March to which all people are welcome.
- It brings women of different races, cultures and traditions together in fellowship, understanding and action throughout the year.
- Through World Day of Prayer, women affirm that prayer and action are inseparable and have immeasurable influence in the world.
- The motto of World Day of Prayer is “Informed Prayer and Prayerful Action.”
The symbol for World Day of Prayer was developed by the women of Ireland and adopted as the international logo in 1982. Its design is made up of arrows converging from the four points of the compass, persons kneeling in prayer, the celtic cross, and the circle, representing the world and our unity through all our diversity.
Origins of World Day of Prayer
The origins of World Day of Prayer date back to the 19th century when Christian women of the United States and Canada initiated a variety of cooperative activities in support of women’s involvement in mission at home and in other parts of the world.
Women had a strong sense of identification with the needs of women and children and searched for ways to provide support. Despite strong resistance from all-male mission boards, beginning in 1861 women founded many women’s boards for foreign and home missions where they could work directly with other women and children.
Women were encouraged to engage in personal prayer and take leadership within their mission auxiliaries and associations. This emphasis on prayer led to annual days and weeks of prayer. In 1887 Presbyterian women called for a day of prayer for home missions and Methodist women called for a week of prayer and self-denial for foreign missions. A Baptist day of prayer for foreign missions began in 1891.
Women had a vision of Christian unity that was essential to their exercise of mission. By 1897 six denominations had formed a committee for a united day of prayer for home missions. In 1911 women celebrated the 50th anniversary of women’s missionary activity by organizing a series of speaking engagements across the US providing other women with a powerful experience of ecumenical cooperation and fellowship. Women of the six participating denominations wrote a common worship service on a rotating basis and in 1912 called for a united day of prayer for foreign missions.
After the devastation of World War I, women incorporated the conviction that world peace was intrinsically tied to world mission and renewed their efforts for unity. The first Friday of Lent was established as a joint day of prayer for missions and celebrated for the first time on February 20, 1920. Due to the enthusiasm of denominational and interdenominational women’s groups, world spread rapidly throughout the USA. In 1922, Canadian women who had begun celebrating a day of prayer in 1895, took up the same date.
In 1926 women in North America distributed the worship service to as many countries and partners in mission as they could. The worldwide response was enthusiastic. By 1927 the call to prayer was issued for a World Day of Prayer for Missions. The title was shortened to World Day of Prayer in 1928 and that same year, this statement came from the World Day of Prayer Committee:
It is with deep gratitude that we recognize the growing power inherent in our World Day of Prayer. A very decided expansion of this prayer fellowship has come during the past year. The circle of prayer has expanded literally around the world. We have learned the great lesson of praying with, rather than for, our sisters of other races and nations, thus enriching our experience and releasing the power which must be ours if we are to accomplish tasks entrusted to us.
Ecumenical Spirituality of World Day of Prayer
Perhaps you have seen maps of the world that are not centered from an expected or familiar perspective. For example when the Southern Hemisphere is displayed on top, one’s orientation is literally turned upside down. In theory one knows that the earth is round and suspended in space and so the world can be accurately viewed from any point. But our first impulse is to turn the map around because we feel lost. Even when we have seen satellite images of the earth with no borders we cannot resist adjusting the image until what is familiar is at the center and then to see others in relation to ourselves.
Thus the ecumenical spirituality of World Day of Prayer, which is celebrated in 170 countries, is a process that shifts our perspective to a different country each year. While the theme is chosen and assigned at a quadrennial international meeting of WDP Committees, the development of the theme into a worship service is conducted by women of WDP in that writer country. Their preparation strives to be done in an attentive, mutually supportive process so that the worship service will authentically reflect the multi-dimensions of their context, their faith experiences from the various church traditions in their country, and their cultural influences. The worldwide network of women of WDP are committed to listen intensely to what their sisters will say—in effect they hear the women of that writer country into speaking. Truly, one is able to speak when one knows that she is being heard.
The preparations for the actual WDP worship service on each first Friday of March are a creative and educational process that takes months of organizing and work. Women conduct workshops and publish articles and resource materials. They seek out where members of the writer ethnic community might be in their country. They show slides; arrange for speakers. They conduct Bible Studies that explore the significance of the text in itself, in the writer context and in their own country. Women faithfully struggle to make their sisters’ words and symbols the basis for local ecumenical worship.
The wonder of the ecumenical spirituality of WDP is that the writers shape a community worship service that is particular because it has come from Indonesia, Samoa, Romania, Lebanon, Panama, and in the future Poland, South Africa, Paraguay and on and on, year after year. It is universal because the honesty and integrity that are the basis of the writer’s prayer allows distant sisters to recognize what is similar and shared and to value what is special and different. Thus a prayer of intercession that prays for God’s help in grief, loss, war and the consequences of war can become a prayer in which burdens are shared worldwide. There is a profound sense of solidarity experienced by the writers because their prayer is voiced by communities in as many languages as the bible has been published. At the same time the faith that sees one through conflict and difficulties is strengthened by the witness of others near and far. Then one encounters the meaning of peace and joy, which no one can take from us. The ecumenical spirituality of WDP is both particular and universal. There is a healthy tension in this dialogue that is contrary to the homogenizing effect of the current economic globalization.
The reaching out toward another country is matched by reaching out to ecumenical connections and understandings within one’s own local and national context. When Romania led the worship in 2002 and Lebanon in 2003, women especially sought out the Orthodox women and clergy in their communities in order to begin or to broaden dialogues about World Day of Prayer. At the same time care was given to explaining elements in the worship service that came from Orthodox practices that were unfamiliar or difficult for other traditions. When one could move through an obstacle or one’s own resistance, there was often an encounter with the breadth and depth of the mystery of God’s divinity. To make the sign of the cross when it was not your practice pulled one’s capacity to be with another in a way that was beyond words. In this dialogue women also found themselves speaking about their own traditions and coming to a deepening appreciation of it. Ecumenical spirituality of WDP is to move through respectfulness and openness to solidarity in an expression of Christian faith within a common ecumenical worship service.
In their commitment to build ecumenical participation locally, regionally, nationally and internationally women of WDP have experienced support and joy as they saw ecumenical relationships grow stronger through the annual preparations on the first Friday of March. They have also withstood objections and sometime have even been denied use of a church—as late as the morning of the worship while decorations were being set up. It takes ingenuity to relocate and generosity not to close down the ecumenical effort when the rejection and misunderstanding are so painful. Women cannot know ahead of time the significance of their effort. Nonetheless, like the unnamed woman in Mark’s Gospel who is only known for her action in breaking open an alabaster jar, women of WDP break open every reserve of patience, persistence, and creativity in their preparations. When walls divide a community they seek out openings. Together women make a space for inclusion that grows wider each year.
It cannot be said often enough that World Day of Prayer is a movement and a process that requires a commitment in time, study, preparation, and personal stretching in order to bring into a local community in an authentic way the realities of women in distant places. The ecumenical spirituality of WDP is a yearlong task in order to be ready to receive from God inspiration that is linked to a country, Bible texts, prayers and a theme.
The ecumenical spirituality of WDP is dynamic because of our commitment to informed prayer. When we become informed in our prayer we open ourselves to the disturbing consequences that we are responsible for what we know and learn. Through informed prayer we seek out ways to act in solidarity with women in need.
Most of this story is taken directly from the World Day of Prayer website.
