The Chair of Unity Octave (Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity)

The Chair of Unity Octave is eight days of prayer, from January 18 to January 25, for the reunion of all Christians in the one Church of Christ. Its dates are themselves a sermon: it begins on the traditional Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome — the seat of unity — and ends on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the great apostle to the nations.

The Octave was first conceived by Father Paul of Graymoor (Fr. Paul James Wattson) on 30 November 1907, before his entrance into the Catholic Church. Its success in 1908 so encouraged him that he resolved to promote it every year, and he regarded the Octave as one of the special means that brought his Society of the Atonement into the Church on 30 October 1909. Just two months later, on 27 December 1909, it received the blessing of Pope St. Pius X. Later popes gave it their blessing as well — Pope St. John XXIII, who urged its wider observance throughout the world, and Pope Paul VI, who had promoted it as Cardinal Archbishop of Milan. Father Paul considered the Octave the greatest work that came from Graymoor.

The Octave, as he conceived it, reflects the unchanging truth that there can be no real unity apart from union with that Rock, established by Christ Himself, which is Peter and his successors. For that reason St. Peter is honored as the special patron of the Octave. Its antiphon is Our Lord’s own high-priestly prayer, "that they all may be one… that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me" (John 17:21), and its versicle His word to Peter, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church" (Matthew 16:18). Though in later years it was overshadowed by the broader "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity," the traditional Octave keeps its original and pointed intentions: that all the separated — and all outside the fold — may come home to the unity of the Catholic Church under the Chair of Peter, the unity which God desires for His people.