Homily: 7th Week of Easter - Wednesday - Church Unity during the Year of Faith

The final section of John’s Gospel right before the beginning of the Passion of the Lord is a prayer that Jesus offers to the Father.  Scholars call it “The High Priestly Prayer” of Jesus.

In it, Jesus prays that his Father might be glorified in what he is about to do, namely his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, and that his disciples might receive eternal life through it.

In that prayer, as we heard today, Jesus prays for unity—that the unity he has with the Father, might be shared by his followers.  “that they may be one just as we are one…”

It’s a truth that has been attacked up and down the centuries:  Jesus shares the Father’s divinity.  We proclaim this every time we pray the Nicene Creed when we use that wonderful word ‘consubstantial’.  Jesus and the Father have the same substance.  They are both God.

We also proclaim the unity of the Church every week in the Nicene Creed, when we say, “I believe in ONE, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”  There is One faith, one church, one baptism, because there is One God.  We have been given this communion with God and communion with each other by Christ himself.

Saint Columbkille is a wonderful parish to see the Church’s diversity: we have Filipino, and Slovak, and polish, and Italian, and Ukrainian, and young and old and…older, doctors and lawyers, and painters, and construction workers.

From the beginning, this one Church has been marked by a great diversity, which comes from both the variety of God’s gifts and the diversity of those who receive them.  We can see, even in a little place like Parma, Ohio, a multiplicity of peoples and cultures gathered together.

A diverse multiplicity of people professing one faith, having the common celebration of divine worship, namely the sacraments, seeking the same thing, in the end, to love and glorify God.  Christ calls his disciples to unity.

Yet, the Church is not a closed reality.  To echo Pope John Paul, “She is sent to the world to announce and witness, to make present and spread the mystery of communion which is essential to her, and to gather all people and all things into Christ, so as to be for all an 'inseparable sacrament of unity'
During this Year of Faith, we focus on the tenants on our faith, not just for self-understanding, so that we can be more effective in spreading the truth of Christ.

Christ called us to unity so that his joy might be in us, and our joy might be complete, may we be faithful to all His call requires of us for the glory of God and salvation of souls.