Deacon Tom Writes,
“We Are All In This Together!”
The
words of today’s gospel challenge anyone attempting to live as disciples of
Christ amid the disunity that troubles our world. Jesus finishes the last
Passover meal he was to share with his friends before heading across the Kidron
Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane. His final words spoke of his burning desire
that “they may all be one”. Jesus calls us to share the same unity with
one another and with him as he has with the Father so that we may know, “…that the love with which you loved me may
be in them and I in them”. Recall that when Jesus spoke these words he too
was in the midst of a fractured world… Roman occupation, tension between the
Jews and the Gentiles, slaves and free, rich and poor, religious leaders and
the people they were supposed to shepherd. Unity was far from the reality.
Yet
Jesus calls his followers to a different worldview… one of unity. Jesus’ last words emphasize that we
live in God’s love just as Jesus lives in Father’s love. The Son of God calls us
to a mutual love, loving him as he loves us. It is an invitation into this
mutual love, a love that leads us into union with the Divine Godhead, the
Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
With
even the slightest awareness of this reality, we begin to see ourselves as one
with God, united to him as children to their father. We all should be working
as one big family seeking to remove all the barriers that divide us, that
separate us from the love of God and each other. And so, as people so
intimately united with one another through our mutual, loving relationship with
God, we are called to surmount all the barriers to God’s love, the barriers of
hatred and discrimination, the barriers of poverty and ignorance, the barriers
that has one group thinking they are superior to another group. And,
furthermore, we are called to shun all the voices calling us to disunity,
factions, division. All these barriers attack the central reality of our faith
– that we are made in the image and likeness of God and that we possess a
dignity of person because of God’s love and indwelling in us.
God
loves all his children, without exception and he calls us to be like him in
this regard. Let our lives be spent living
Jesus’ farewell prayer to his disciples by seeking to be one with him and with
each other by reconciling our differences, by being moved with compassion in
the face of suffering, bigotry, violence, and ignorance. In the face of the
rampant divisiveness we witness today, do we dare pray with Jesus, “Holy Father… may all be one, as you, Father,
are in me and I in you”. May
the Almighty Father hear our prayers and give us the grace and courage to
overcome our fears so we may live as true disciples of the Lord who prayed that” we all may be one”.
Happy
Mothers’ Day to all our mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers! May God
bless on this special day and always and fill your day with his joy.
Enjoy
the day!
Deacon
Tom
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