Article March 2, 1998 Issue

WORLD DAY OF PRAYER

Rosalie E. Dunbar

For more than a century, women, and a growing number of men and children, have joined together on the first Friday in March—March 6 this year—for a global prayer service sponsored by World Day of Prayer (WDP). In the words of the organization, it is a "time of 'informed prayer and prayerful action'" that is also meant to increase "our understanding of how God is working and needed in the context and concerns of [our] daily lives."

Founded by Mary Ellen James in 1887, WDP now has representatives in 179 countries. Every four years, participants meet to select the four countries that will write services for the next four years. This year's writers were the women associated with WDP in Madagascar.

They chose to focus on the question "Who is my neighbour?" as asked by the lawyer to whom Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan (see Luke 10:30–37). Speaking of this parable, the writers of the service explain in the Bible study section: "Love gives a meaning to everything we do. It makes us care for others, consider them as ourselves, and take them as our friends.... Blessed are we, and blessed are all those we meet, when we love each other as neighbors."

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