Let me tell you a few poorly kept secrets: First, it’s hard not being of the world while living in the world; it’s hard to be like Jesus Christ. Second, unity among Christians is no easier, because unity implies acceptance and obedience, two things we human beings really dislike. And third, few people, Christians included, want to hear the Truth, especially when it conflicts with what they want to do.
Indeed, all of these things -- being Christ-like, maintaining unity, and being consecrated in the truth – are not only hard, they’re flat-out impossible. Well, they’re humanly impossible. And yet, in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus prays for all three, because He knows it’s only through the active help of the Holy Spirit that we can turn these hopes of His into reality.
Let’s just look at one of these hopes: Jesus’ prayer for unity. He’s actually praying for a unity that transcends normal human relationships. Unity’s the main theme of His high priestly prayer at the Last Supper, a prayer that concludes with a petition for Christian unity among all who profess Jesus Christ as Lord. Jesus prays for all men and women who will follow Him as His disciples. And He prays, not just for the Apostles, but for all members of His Body the Church, that we’ll be one as He and the Father are one – in a unity of total love and obedience, a unity based on the strongest of personal relationships, the relationship that exists within the Trinity itself. And, of course, the prayer of Jesus bears fruit, for His prayer is always efficacious.
We see this throughout the Acts of the Apostles, how the disciples, despite divergent opinions, ultimately come together as one, united in their faith and their teaching. The Holy Spirit is the great consensus-maker. Indeed, the distinctive mark of Jesus’ disciples is their love and unity – a unity foretold in Psalm 133: “How good and pleasant it is when the brothers dwell in unity.”
Jesus’ prayer on the eve of His sacrifice shows the love and trust He extends to His friends. Although He knows they will abandon Him in His hour of greatest need, He still entrusts them with the seemingly impossible task of spreading his name throughout the world and to the end of time. But He leaves His love to support them, and the Spirit to guide them.
Jesus loved us first. In Baptism we are united to Him and to each other; and so we are called to live in a unity of love. He wants no one to be lost. And so He entrust us with the same mission, to make Him known and loved by all. For it is only through unity in Him that the world knows Jesus was sent to redeem us all. This is why Christian disunity is such a scandal.
But Jesus' prayer is also a promise, a promise to be with us as we struggle to follow Him. He will not leave us alone. His gift of the Spirit is our constant help in times of sadness and suffering, of joy and triumph, and a reminder of the great love of Our Savior. Jesus’ prayer reminds us that we, too, must pray for unity, that we can love one another – a prayer as necessary today as it was then. Jesus knows unity is hard for us; it’s not easy to love each other as Christ loves us.In His Sermon on the Mount He even tells us to love and pray for our enemies, something the world considers the height of folly. Can you imagine praying for the soul of Osama bin Laden? Well, yes, I can, because we’re asked to be different from the world. We’re asked to be like Jesus Himself. You see, the unity Jesus prays for is manifested by how we love and serve all of God's people, not just those who share our Catholic faith. When we exclude others from our lives and concerns, we work against Christian unity.
This doesn’t mean we must water down our Faith so that others, in their disbelief, might accept it. Not at all! Remember what I said earlier: achieving true unity is not humanly, but only divinely possible. And so we must pray and teach and preach God’s complete Word, and let the Holy Spirit bring others to Him and His one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. And we must do so in love.
Do we really love and accept all God’s people as our brothers and sisters in Christ? Do we treat everyone we encounter with the love that Christ extends to us? Or do we pick and choose? Today let’s pray that, like St Paul, God will give us the courage to speak the truth and to work for unity among all those whom the Father has given to his Son.
For it’s through us that His work will be done.
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