Pursuing that elusive unity

WE are referring to Christian unity, an ardent desire dramatically expressed in one of the last prayers of our Lord before his death. It is distilled in these Latin words: “Ut unum sint,” that they may be one, which was our Lord’s appeal to his Father.

The complete text is found in John 17, 11-22: “Holy Father, keep them in your name whom you have given me, that they may be one as we also are one.” Our Lord must have known how difficult this business of attaining unity among God’s children could be, and thus that most heartfelt plea to his Father.

We have to pray for this unity always. It can only take place through God’s grace, and so we have to continually ask for it. We should never take this petition for granted. As of now, several efforts have already been done on the part of the Church to pursue this goal, but obstacles big and small manage to find their way to mar the process.

In the meantime, it is good that all of us try to sharpen and polish our skills at dialogue and others that can help build up unity. As long as we are driven by love with its properties of understanding, patience, respect for one another, etc., we can do a lot in this department.

We have to try to eliminate those attitudes and practices that create and nurture division and conflict. Some words of St. Paul can give us concrete ideas of how to go about this point.

In his Letter to the Philippians, he says the following relevant words: “Fill up my joy by thinking alike, having the same charity, with one soul and one mind. Do nothing out of contentiousness or out of vainglory, but in humility let each one regard the others as his superiors, each one looking not to his own interests, but to those of others.” (2,2-4)

This, to me, is a great secret that can foster unity—regarding others as superior to us, making ourselves servants of the others, always humble and simple, not allowing pride, conceit and vanity to lodge in our mind and heart.

This attitude of humility and simplicity somehow cleans up our vision of things, making us truly objective of who we really are, who the others are, and what God is to all of us. It makes us follow closely the example of Christ who with his cross ¨draws all things to myself.¨ (Jn 12,32)

Our main problem is that we dare to free ourselves from God, to hew our own path independently and even going against the teachings and example of Christ, God-made-man.

With this mindset, we cannot avoid getting into the loop of self-centeredness that creates division among ourselves. Instead of bridges, we build walls. Instead of understanding and compassion, we generate self-righteousness.

Instead of loving, we get stuck at simply knowing. Thus, instead of giving ourselves to others, we expect to receive something from others. St. Paul has something relevant to say about this point: ¨Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies.¨ (1 Cor 8,1)

We have to make sure that our pursuit for knowledge should always increase our love for God and for others, expressed in greater worship, thanksgiving, and eagerness to serve, to be patient and forgiving.

When knowledge grows sans charity, there´s no way to avoid pride and conceit, vanity and that tendency to control and dominate others. These have no other effect than resentment, division and conflict.

We have to develop the appropriate attitudes, skills and virtues in our daily affairs and dealings with everybody. We have to deepen and strengthen our attitude to eagerly understand others, even and especially when they offend us or commit some mistakes.

Our Lord told us to love our enemies. We have to stretch our love to such an extent of loving those who don´t love us, or who hate us. Like Christ, we have to be willing to bear the burden of the others, especially that burden that is called sins, offenses and mistakes.

This is actually not going against justice, because justice in the end is about sanctity, that is, identification with Christ who was willing to make himself like sin to snatch us from the grip of sin.

This is how we can aspire to attain that elusive unity among us in the normal course of our daily life. Before we think of some big enterprises to build Christian unity, let´s see to it that we have the basic attitudes and practices in place.