What does the Bible have in common with Fifty Shades of Grey or one of John Green’s best-selling young adult novels?

The easy way to look back on 2015, or any year of news, is to list off all the bombings, shootings, riots, droughts, hurricanes, floods and famines. We can always find a parade of disaster.

VATICAN CITY - Financial wrongdoing at the Vatican, leaked documents and arrests by the Vatican police may make it seem like 2012 all over again, but the situation -- while serious -- is not the breach of papal privacy that the earlier "VatiLeaks" scandal was.

Editor’s note: this is the winning essay in the annual contest for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity sponsored by The Catholic Register and the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement-Graymoor. Angela Grace Tabucan is in Grade 12 at St. Brother André Catholic High School in Markham, Ont.

Often in our world Catholics tend to have a great discomfort when talking about or communicating with those of other Christian denominations. John 4:1-42 tells of Jesus and the woman of Samaria, and shows Jesus reaching out of His own Jewish community to speak with this woman. Christ is always found seeking community with others and when we embrace Christian unity we further grow in communion, strength and in love with Him.

Editor’s note: this is the second-place essay in the annual contest for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity sponsored by The Catholic Register and the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement-Graymoor. Veronica Marie Carswell is a student at Toronto's Don Bosco Secondary School.

In a good world, everyone would be accepted and respected despite their differences. In a perfect world, everyone would be accepted and respected because of their differences.

Editor’s note: this is the third place essay in the annual contest for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity sponsored by The Catholic Register and the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement-Graymoor. Michael Bellucci is a student at Toronto's Bishop Allen Academy.

The passage of John 4: 1-42 tells us how Jesus travelled to Samaria and did an almost unspeakable thing for that time. He associated himself with a Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans had a long-standing prejudice towards each other and they never got along. When Jesus went to a well to get water, He spoke with a woman who was not only a Samaritan, but had five husbands and was looked down upon in her community. When Jesus spoke to the woman, even she was astonished He was talking to her.