The Confession of Saint Peter

The Collect
Almighty Father, who inspired Simon Peter, first among the apostles, to confess Jesus as Messiah and Son of the living God: Keep your Church steadfast upon the rock of this faith, so that in unity and peace we may proclaim the one truth and follow the one Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.


The Psalm
23


The Readings
Acts 4:8-13     +     I Peter 5:1-4     +     Matthew 16:13-19

He said to them, But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.
~Matthew 16:15-17

The eight days from the Confession of St. Peter on 18 January to the Conversion of St. Paul on 25 January mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. To begin, here is part of a prayer from Paul Couturier's 'Ecumenical Testament':

'Lord, under the intolerable weight of distress caused by the separations between Christians, my heart fails. I have confidence in thee, O Christ, who has overcome the world. It is the property of love to produce a blind confidence in the beloved. My confidence in thee is boundless, and rightly so, since thou art almighty . . . My confidence in thee, O Christ, throws me into thy heart where I find thy prayer, "Father, that they may be one, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me, Father, that they may be made perfect in one." . . . Then how will Unity come about? What obstacles are to be overcome? It is thy work: my faith can only bid me pray with thee and in thee, that thy Unity may come, the unity which thou hast not ceased to desire, which thou dost continue to prepare . . . This is a simple and loyal way of prayer. It is a meeting-place where, by virtue of charity, the prayers for unity of all true sons of love, all true Christians, even though separated, may flow together into the heart of Christ . . . and makes it possible for us all to rest together in the heart of Christ.'

Closing Prayer
Almighty Father, whose blessed Son before his passion prayed for his disciples that they might be one, as you and he are one: Grant that your Church, being bound together in love and obedience to you, may be united in one body by the one Spirit, that the world may believe in him whom you have sent, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

~from the Book of Common Prayer, p. 255

Additional prayers for the unity and mission of the church may be found in the Book of Common Prayer, beginning on page 816, especially no. 14 (p. 818), and the final collect for Noonday Prayer (p. 107). 

More about this year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity here.