World Communion Sunday, October 6

The first Sunday in October is designated as World Communion Sunday, which celebrates our oneness in Christ with all our brothers and sisters around the world. Paul tells us that we are to “discern the body” when we partake of Holy Communion. “All who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves,” he writes in 1 Corinthians 11:29. World Communion Sunday invites us to be mindful of our relationship to all our brothers and sisters in Christ in the celebration.
 
It is also the time when we receive the annual Peace and Global Witness Offering as a way of continuing the ancient Christian practice of sharing what we have with brothers and sisters in need. World Communion Sunday (originally called World Wide Communion Sunday) is a gift of the Presbyterian Church to the larger ecumenical church. World Communion Sunday symbolizes the effort to hold things together, in a spiritual sense. It emphasizes that we are one in the Spirit and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. World Communion Sunday is celebrated around the world, demonstrating that the church founded on Jesus Christ peacefully shares God-given goods in a world increasingly destabilized by globalization and global market economies based on greed.