Sunday
Jan242010
That All May Be One
Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 4:42PM
While Jesus was sharing his last meal with the Apostles he prayed for them and said: “I pray that all may be one as you Father are in me, and in you; I pray that they may be one in us.”
Those words have echoed through generation after generation in the life of the Church. We constantly pray that we may be one with Christ and with one another. It is never easy to be one, even in the life of the Church. It can be difficult to be one with our fellow Christians, and yet we strive to have a true unity one day.
On January 25th we celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. He was given the task by the Lord to bring the Gospel to all nations. He was called to help us all be one. His life is one extraordinary story after another. On his missionary travels Paul always started his preaching by preaching to the Jewish community in that area, just as Christ Himself did. Often enough he experienced rejection in the Gentile communities. The people did not want to listen to this new message. St. Paul had a double problem. He encountered some rejection by the communities of Jewish people on the one hand; while on the other hand he experienced the Greeks and Romans as cold to the idea of embracing the message of Christ.
St. Paul had been given a very difficult ministry, but he remained faithful to the message and faithful to his call to preach it. I can only imagine that St. Paul kept reminding himself of what he learned from the Apostles. He was also faithful to those words of Jesus when he remembered that Jesus said he wanted us all to be one.
St. Paul provides an extraordinary example of what it means to be one with Christ – no matter how difficult it will be. Imagine what it would be like if we all truly became one in Christ. As we celebrate the Feast of St. Paul this year I hope we can be another step closer to him in being close to Christ.
Sometimes it is tragedy that brings us together as one. We have experienced that in a critical way as we hear the stories of the Haiti Earth Quake. May you continue to be one in spirit with those people as they endure immense hardship and pain. May the message of Jesus make us all one.
Those words have echoed through generation after generation in the life of the Church. We constantly pray that we may be one with Christ and with one another. It is never easy to be one, even in the life of the Church. It can be difficult to be one with our fellow Christians, and yet we strive to have a true unity one day.
On January 25th we celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. He was given the task by the Lord to bring the Gospel to all nations. He was called to help us all be one. His life is one extraordinary story after another. On his missionary travels Paul always started his preaching by preaching to the Jewish community in that area, just as Christ Himself did. Often enough he experienced rejection in the Gentile communities. The people did not want to listen to this new message. St. Paul had a double problem. He encountered some rejection by the communities of Jewish people on the one hand; while on the other hand he experienced the Greeks and Romans as cold to the idea of embracing the message of Christ.
St. Paul had been given a very difficult ministry, but he remained faithful to the message and faithful to his call to preach it. I can only imagine that St. Paul kept reminding himself of what he learned from the Apostles. He was also faithful to those words of Jesus when he remembered that Jesus said he wanted us all to be one.
St. Paul provides an extraordinary example of what it means to be one with Christ – no matter how difficult it will be. Imagine what it would be like if we all truly became one in Christ. As we celebrate the Feast of St. Paul this year I hope we can be another step closer to him in being close to Christ.
Sometimes it is tragedy that brings us together as one. We have experienced that in a critical way as we hear the stories of the Haiti Earth Quake. May you continue to be one in spirit with those people as they endure immense hardship and pain. May the message of Jesus make us all one.
Reader Comments