Whether the battle lines are drawn between northern and southern Ireland, Israel and Palestine or the handful of nations born out of the former Yugoslavia, divisions are not only present but deep as well. Clearly, it would seem, there is far more that separates us than brings us together.
The idea of unity was a difficult concept in the time of Christ since the children of Abraham were no longer united but rather divided into the two Hebrew kingdoms of Israel and Judah. In addition, the Jews were beset by many factions within their own faith. Among the ranks of Christ’s fledgling group of followers, however, there must have been a tremendous sense of purpose and unity as they were energized by the teachings of the Messiah and mesmerized by His miracles; they undoubtedly saw themselves as too old for the transformation of an old world looking for a new way to live.
Gathered there in the upper room, where our Lord made His prayer, “That they all may be one just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You,” there was surely a new and unique sense of unity as our Lord ate the Passover meal for the last time with the apostles, instituted the priesthood and initiated the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The powerful image of unity illustrated by the presence of our Lord surrounded by His apostles is made all the more poignant by the fact that in the next chapter of John’s Gospel, Peter would deny our Lord three times and the remaining apostles would scatter and hide.
It was at that last supper that the world gained its greatest tool for unity: The Holy Eucharist. In the Blessed Sacrament, we, as recipients, are united to God and He to us. We are united to each other as sharers of the Body and Blood of the Lord and we are also fused intimately with those who are with Him in heaven and experience His presence. All together we form, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.
As recipients of the Holy Eucharist we have a special vocation to bring others to the Holy Eucharist, the great sacrament of unity, so that “all may be one” in Him. There are nearly one billion Catholic worldwide (almost 20 percent of the world’s population); in our country there are 60 million Catholic living in 20,000 different parishes. All of us have at least one thing in common; we are all brought together by the presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist each Sunday.
Our planet may be fraught with all manner of impediments to unity, yet in all of the Catholic Churches around the world we receive the same God. Hopefully the day will come when we have one flock in the world united under one Shepherd partaking together in the Body and Blood of Christ. Until then it is up to all of us to work with the zeal and energy of the apostles to bring more people to the Eucharistic table of the Lord so that “all may be one” in Him.
(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
