Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of Saint John of Capistrano, Priest
One of the great scandals of Christianity the disunity of the Christian church. Over the centuries, we have suffered schisms, and while some have been healed, many persist to this day. And this is not the Lord’s desire for his Church. As noted in yesterday’s reflection, the Lord prayed before his passion that “they may be one” (John 17:11); Paul expresses a similar sentiment in today’s first reading when he speaks of “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” All who share one baptism are called to be united in one profession of faith and in service to one Lord.
Genuine unity, as Paul indicates, requires humility, gentleness, and patience; it demands that we “bear with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.” It is not the same as an imposed uniformity, not is it a laissez-faire attitude of ‘live and let live,’ but the hard-won fruit of communion (cf. Magnifica Humanitas 7–10). A family that lives in true peace and communion knows just how demanding such unity is.
Our time of fracturing and polarization, from the local to the global levels, could sorely benefit from the witness of true Christian unity. Today, then, let us ask God to pour forth his Spirit of unity upon us, so that we might bear with one another in love and thus grow in that true peace and unity which is the Lord’s design.