Only a month ago, many of us gathered for Christmas dinner with our families. A shared meal is always a great unifier. Jesus’ final prayer for his Church was for its unity (Jn 17). Unfortunately, the older I get, the more disunity I see in the world and the Church.
In this week’s second reading, St. Paul addresses the problem of disunity in the Church of Corinth. “Let there be no factions … rather, be united in mind and judgment.” St. Paul tells them that their divisive behavior goes against their life in Christ Jesus, for they were all “baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” Disunity among Christians has been a problem since New Testament times and is a reality today. Not long ago many Catholics had a simple solution for this problem: non-Catholics must repent of their errors and return to their ancestral home, which they should never have left in the first place.
The Second Vatican Council with its Decree on Ecumenism, “Unitatis Redintegratio,” corrects this view in some very important ways. First, it said that “people on both sides were to blame,” for the division among Christians, adding that “no one can be charged with the sin of separation who were born into other Christian communities (the second generation) … and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers and sisters in Christ.” (UR 3)
Second, “Unitatis Redintegratio” said that before there could be any question of these brothers and sisters “returning” to the Catholic Church we must “make a careful and honest appraisal of whatever needs to be renewed and done in the Catholic household itself.” Although the Catholic Church has ALL the treasures of God’s truth and grace, “its members fall short by failing to live by them with all the fervor they should.” This makes the Church “less credible and less attractive than it should be, both to other Christians and to the world at large.” (UR 4)
In November, to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed and the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325 AD), the successor of St. Peter, Pope Leo XIV, traveled to Iznik, Turkey, (ancient Nicaea) to visit and pray for Christian unity with the successor of St. Andrew, the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I. Sadly, in 2054 we will mark the 1,000th anniversary of the “Great Scism” between our two great Churches. Imagine what an awesome force the reunification of Christian East and West would be in a world and culture that seems so opposed to the Christian faith in both hemispheres. As St. John Paul II once wrote, “The Church must breathe with her two lungs” (“Ut Umum Sint” #54). To be spiritually whole, the body of the Church needs its two lungs united and functioning fully. We need the traditions of both Western and Eastern Christianity.
“Unitatis Redintegratio” teaches, in short, that we all have a responsibility for the reunion of Christ’s followers. Each compromise of Christ’s teachings and demands upon us diminishes the Church’s radiance and inflicts new wounds on the body of Christ. Our sins are not merely a private affair between ourselves and our God. By our sins we weaken our relationship with God, and we weaken the unity of the great family of God, which in the Nicene Creed we call the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”
Jesus calls each one of us to build up and to strengthen our unity. The first people he summoned to this task were not theologians, but simple working people, fishermen, as we read in the Gospel today — “Come after me,” Jesus said to Peter and his brother Andrew, Pope Leo and Patriarch Bartholomew’s predecessors, “and I will make you fishers of men.”
Jesus says the same to each of us. He calls us to be so filled with his grace, love, goodness and joy that people will be drawn through us to God. This is your mission from Jesus Christ and his Church. It is the best thing you can do for him — and the best thing you can do for yourself, and all your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Father Haugan is pastor of Lumen Christi Catholic Community in St. Paul.
Sunday, Jan. 25
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
- Is 8:23–9:3
- 1 Cor 1:10-13, 17
- Mt 4:12-23
