Catholic Teachings - Unity of the Church - A Catholic Parish Mission Message

Unity, Does Anybody Want It?

"Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.(John 17:11)

"For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit."(Cor. 12:13)

Well, according to those Scriptures, it is obvious that Jesus and Paul wanted it, but those words were spoken two thousand years ago. Do they have any relevance to the Church and our personal lives today.

YES! As I travel to churches both in and out of the Diocese, I see what disunity and unforgiveness is doing. It's destroying marriages, turning parents against children, brothers against sisters and dividing faith communities. People will walk into church and celebrate Mass together, walk down the aisle side by side to receive the Eucharist and hold hands while saying the Our Father. But some of those same people once outside will refuse to talk to one another because of some grudge or resentment.

I believe that the reason our Pope is calling for a " New Evangelization" is because during his travels around the world he has seen that pain is universal and that Jesus is the divine healer and the supreme physician.

In a Catholic dictionary it states that when unity is applied to persons, it is achieved through common beliefs, desires and goals. When applied to the Church, it is a work of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the agent of unity.

Allow me to use this example. The ocean is warm and cold, calm and rough, shallow and deep. If I am in the cold, rough, deep part of the ocean and you are in the warm, calm, shallow part of the ocean, don't tell me I don't know the ocean. I just don't know your part of the ocean.

As a Church we are all preparing in our own way to celebrate the Third Millennium or as it has been said, "A New Springtime of Christianity." We may pray and worship in different ways, come from diverse cultures and backgrounds, have varying views of the Institutional church, and unique past experiences, but we all come from the same God.

It seems that during this time of the year, people are more willing to surrender and give things up. How about we let go of our bias, prejudice, bigotry, unforgiveness, resentment and disunity. I hear so much about Ecumenism, where all faiths shall be one. That's an admirable goal but shouldn't we clean up our own house first? We must mend the wounds within our own church so we will be that beckon of light and a ray of hope not only to the other faith communities, but to those eighty (80) million unchurched people in this country.

During this Lenten season, as we travel our own road, remember that Jesus has given us the roadmap, the Scriptures. And all of our individual roads end up in the same two places. First at the foot of the cross, and lastly, the empty tomb.