Acts 16: 1-10; Psalm 100; John 15: 18-21
“You have been buried with Christ in baptism, through which you also rose again by faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead…’Father, I pray for them, that they may be one in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me’ alleluia!”
There is much clamor in the media about the “Vatican Crackdown” on the Sisters. One angry Catholic insisted we all get back into habits. Baptism identifies all of us as servants. All of us then should be in habit, in habits of prayer, work with the poor and with issues of social justice. The Pope and many bishops are calling for a new evangelization. Jesus tells us the way people will know that Jesus comes from God and embodies God is if we are one, united not in dress and custom but one in mind and heart. Evangelization that would be “new” and not same old-same old would be this unity that Jesus prays for and only God can effect. Unity of faith. We are raised “by faith in the working of God”. Let us beg God for unity, not in man-made doctrines, but in our experience of Jesus as Lord and center of our lives and communities.
O God, you are the center of our lives. In you we want to live and work and have our being. Thank you for the Spirit, making us one with one another and with all of creation