Saint Norbert, Bishop (Optional Memorial)
. . . that they may all be one. (John 17:21)
Have you ever participated in an event with people from all walks of life? Maybe it was something united around a common cause, like the March for Life, or a food drive, or a race to raise money for cancer research. While you were there, chances are no one asked you about your age, where you lived, your occupation, or even your religious affiliation. What brought you together was the cause.
This kind of unity of purpose can help us understand one facet of the unity that Jesus prayed for in today’s Gospel, but he wants us to know much more than unity of purpose. He wants us to know unity of love and unity of vision as well.
It’s no secret that the Church is fractured and that Jesus’ prayer remains unfulfilled. We know that Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox are separated. There are countless different denominations, and the Catholic Church continues to suffer from internal divisions. Even on a smaller level, every parish seems to have its own difficulties.
And so Jesus continues to pray that his followers become one as they share in his Father’s perfect, selfless love. He wants more than cooperation and tolerance. He wants reconciliation and love. When our divisions no longer define our relationships, we’ll begin to see each other as brothers and sisters. We may not believe everything in exactly the same way, but we can rejoice that there is far more that unites us than divides us.
How can we promote Christian unity? By praying. We can bless our brothers and sisters from other traditions. We can ask the Holy Spirit to soften our hearts toward each other. We can echo Jesus’ prayer that all barriers of hostility would be broken down and that God’s children would be one.
Just think of what your prayer for unity can accomplish. Close your eyes and imagine the heavenly throne room. Picture the angels and saints there worshipping Jesus. Now picture everyone from all the churches in your neighborhood joining them. See them all gathered together singing hymns of glory to the Lord. Imagine the smiles on their faces as they greet each other—and as they greet you. Isn’t this a unity worth praying for?
“Come, Lord, and make us one!”
Acts 22:30; 23:6-11
Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-11
Saint John Cassian (around 360-435)
founder of monasteries
Conferences, no. 10,7 ; PL 49, 827 (©Ancient Christian writers, no.57)
"That the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them"
Our Savior prayed to his Father on his disciples' behalf : "That the love with which you have loved me may be them, and they in us." And again: "That all may be one, as you Father in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us." Then that perfect love of God, by which "he loved us first," (1Jn 4:10) will have passed into our heart's disposition upon the fulfillment of this prayer of the Lord...
This will be the case when every love, every desire, effort, every undertaking, every thought of ours, everything that we live, that we speak, that we breathe, will be God, and when that unity which the Father now has with the Son and which the Son has with the Father will be carried over into our understanding and our mind, so that, just as he loves us with a sincere and pure and indissoluble love, we too may be joined to him with a perpetual and inseparable love and so united with him that whatever we breathe, whatever we understand, whatever we speak, may be God. In him we shall attain, I say, to that end... which the Lord longed to be fulfilled in us when he prayed: "That all may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they themselves may also be made perfect in unity." And again: "Father, I wish that those whom you have given me may also be with me where I am."
"This, then, is the goal of the solitary, and this must be his whole intention: to deserve to possess the image of future blessedness in this body and as it were to begin to taste the pledge of that heavenly way of life and glory...