Today’s Gospel places us in the Upper Room, at the Last Supper and we hear part of what is called the Lord’s “Farewell Discourse.” It is, in effect, the Lord’s testament to his apostles, and it reveals the fervent desires of his heart. In it we find that his desire and prayer for the apostles and the Church is “oneness” or “unity.” Oneness is one of the four identifying marks of the Church. But unity must be cultivated and we know through her history, the Church has suffered many divisions--so contrary to the desire of the Lord. This is why the Church is committed to ecumenism, to heal those divisions and bring about unity.
Don’t we desire unity in our relationships, within our families, our parishes and our nation? Throughout our country, many dioceses are merging parishes! Have you heard about that? We know nothing about that here! Uniting parishes together causes such tension and tumult. It feels like the “end of the world!” Cultivating unity is a can be a formidable challenge.
What is the key to unity? How can we achieve it? St. Paul perhaps provides the answer in his letter to the Philippians: “Do nothing out of contentiousness or out of vainglory, but in humility let each one regard the other as his superior, each one looking not to his own interests but to those of others.”
Humility is key. As long as I think of myself as better than others and that I must come first, unity will always elude us. Without humility very little comes together. Unity grows in proportion to our humility.
St. Jose Maria Escriva composed a series of statements he called, “signs of a lack of humility.” Today let’s call them, “roadblocks to unity.” So many of these “hit home!”
The virtue of humility is based on the truth about ourselves. It means “having the right estimate of ourselves.” It involves keeping in balance two truths: on the one hand to acknowledge God has indeed blessed me with many gifts and these I will use wisely and well. On the other hand, I acknowledge that I am not perfect. I have my defects, my sins. I am in need of God’s mercy. In this way we do not make ourselves to be more than I should be nor less than what we are.
We all have people in our life that help us grow in humility. Mothers are such people! They know and tell us the truth about ourselves! Some years ago, when I was a priest already five or six years, on my day off at home, I recall doing something silly. My mom, arms crossed, just looked at me shaking her head, and said, “You know, you spared some good woman by becoming a priest.” She had a knack for keeping me humble!
However, we come to humility, let us bring it into our families, our parish, our committees, our clubs…through it we can come to unity and help to fulfill the fervent prayer of our Lord.