Good News Reflection Today's Saint: Polycarp Today’s Readings: The unity of love In the 1980s, when contemporary Christian recording artists were just beginning to transform the music scene with Christ-centered rock and pop, a friend asked me to listen to one of their albums. She wanted me to tell her it was demonic, because she believed that all rock music came from the devil. But the songs on the album glorified God! I reminded my friend of the words that Jesus spoke in today’s Gospel passage: "Anyone who is not against us is with us." Sadly, she wanted nothing more to do with me, because she now believed that I was demonized, too. Isn't it interesting that Jesus did not say, "Anyone who is not against ME is with ME." He made it an "us". To him, we all matter. Since we belong to him, anyone who does good for the Lord does good to us. This can be hard to grasp, because it’s easier to be aware of what divides us than it is to unite on our common ground. We assume that if people don't tell us what we want to hear, they're against us. Or we think that if someone doesn't worship Jesus the way we do, they're against our faith. We don't have to be in agreement to be in community with others. True Christian unity means acknowledging what we have in common and refusing to allow our differences to interfere with our love. Everyone who LOVES us is with us, because "love comes from God" and therefore "everyone who loves has been born of God" (see 1 John 4:7). As John Paul II wrote in "Ut Unum Sint" (That They May Be One) in 1995: "Love gives rise to the desire for unity, even in those who have never been aware of the need for it. Love builds communion between individuals and between Communities [i.e., denominations]." The opposite of unity is self-imposed excommunication (a word that means "divided from community"). Like the friend who cut herself off from me in her judgmentalism, people excommunicate themselves when they cause division by choosing against love. At the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 2003, Pope John Paul II said: "May each of us be enabled more and more to look upon our brothers and sisters in faith, within the unity of the Mystical Body.... May we come to see what is positive in others, to welcome it and prize it as a gift from God." I suspect that John Paul II will eventually become the Patron Saint of Christian Unity. He did a lot during his pontificate to open doors for cooperation and communication between the Catholic Church and those who have been divided from us in the faith. Now Pope Benedict XVI is building on this foundation. Let us help him in his mission by loving everyone and doing good to all, despite our differences. Note: To learn more from John Paul II, take the courses I teach online at Catholic Digital Resources: http://catholicdr.com/e-Classroom/index-courses.html © 2011 by Terry A. Modica
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Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The unity of love
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