Daily Meditation - Wednesday 7May 2008 - 7th. Week Easter - UNITY - AN ABSOLUTE MUST! and HOW TO GO ABOUT IT

[BarbaraTherese]

Acts 20:28-38
Psalm 68:29-30, 33-36
John 17:11-19

Meditation
wau.org/meditations/meditations.asp?month=5&day=7&year=2008&x=11&y=9

When someone is approaching death, it’s wise to pay close attention to what they have to say.

• Their final words usually tell us much about what is important to them.
• They often reveal what that person valued the most
• and what they want us to learn from them.
• They may even become a legacy to help guide us.

Such were the last words of Pope John XXIII. As he lay dying, he whispered over and over, “May they be one”—words Jesus himself had prayed on the night before he died (John 17:11).

• If both Jesus and the pope prayed before their deaths for unity among believers,
• that should tell us something!
• It’s crucial that we be united not only with Jesus and his Father
• but with one another.
• That’s how the world will know that Jesus really is alive.

So how can we foster this unity
in the face of so much painful division among Christians today?
Most importantly, we can learn to practice true ecumenism.

• Genuine ecumenism isnot about convincing non-Catholics to become Catholic
• —or pretending that we’re not Catholic.
• Rather, it is a quest formutual respect and understanding,
• a quest for members of different traditions and denominations
• to honor everything that unites them,
• even as they discuss respectfully the things that divide them.
• As Pope Benedict XVI explained, ecumenism starts with mutual love and respect:
  Unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return:
• that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history.
• Absolutely not!
• It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in
• liturgical forms and in discipline.

Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity. . . .

We can only obtain unity as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, spiritual ecumenism—prayer, conversion and the sanctification of life—constitutes the heart of the . . . ecumenical movement. . . .

I am convinced that if more and more people unite themselves interiorly to the Lord’s prayer “that all may be one,” then this prayer, made in the Name of Jesus, will not go unheard. (Ecumenical Meeting, 20th World Youth Day, August 19, 2005)

“Jesus, heal all divisions and bring all believers together.

We long for the day when God’s people
are gathered around your table
in complete unity and love!”

 

[bwhite06517]

BEWARE ALIENS AT LARGE
Do you ever wonder why we seem to be out-of-place in today’s world?

It is because we are “aliens”

Jesus says in John 17:13-16

But now I am coming to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

We are part of HIS kingdom - we are not of this world. We belong to Heaven - by the blood of Jesus Christ and our baptism, we are ‘adopted’ into His family - we have become ‘aliens’ in this world and part of God’s Kingdom and world and await the day when we can find our dwelling placed in our Father’s house … as John 14:2 says:

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?

 

[BarbaraTherese]

BEWARE ALIENS AT LARGE

Do you ever wonder why we seem to be out-of-place in today’s world?

It is because we are “aliens”

Jesus says in John 17:13-16

We are part of HIS kingdom - we are not of this world. We belong to Heaven - by the blood of Jesus Christ and our baptism, we are ‘adopted’ into His family - we have become ‘aliens’ in this world and part of God’s Kingdom and world and await the day when we can find our dwelling placed in our Father’s house … as John 14:2 says:

Hi again BW…We are called to be the leaven and salt of this world “and if salt looses its taste?”. And at the moment, the world sure seems to have “lost its taste”!
Our prime and first call is always to mutual love and esteem, and where our attitudes to others are concerned, mutual love and esteem is a must, a forever and always, including in these forums. While we cannot at this point in time be fully united due to doctrinal differences in the main, we can be united in mutual love and esteem as we travel that road towards full unity, which as yet just may be a long way in the future. But happen it will.

This thread ties into my points:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=238268

We are not called to despise this world, rather to work within it and lovingly of it since it has been created by God who loves it and created it out of His Love.
Matthew 5

13

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men.

The world today is in a lot of trouble and has lost its “savour” in many instances and my first question must be “Where am I going wrong?”…and then “where are we going wrong?”

Blessings and warm regards, BW…Barb *