Division and truth

"That they may be one" is the prayer of Christ and it is the prayer of many of us Christians.

We hear something that sounds a little different, however, in today's Gospel (Luke 12:49-53):

Do you think that I have come
to establish peace on the earth?

No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five
will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Our Lord indeed prays for unity, but it is a unity based on truth, against which the world rebels - and therein lies the source of the division (as we hear in the Gospel passage in which Christ prays "that they may be one").

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.

Sanctify them in the truth;
thy word is truth.

As thou didst send me into the world,
so I have sent them into the world.

And for their sake I consecrate myself,
that they also may be consecrated in truth.

I do not pray for these only,
but also for those who believe in me
through their word,
that they may all be one;
even as thou, Father, art in me,
and I in thee,
that they also may be in us,
so that the world may believe
that thou hast sent me.

The glory which thou hast given me
I have given to them,
that they may be one even as we are one,
I in them and thou in me,
that they may become perfectly one,
so that the world may know
that thou hast sent me
and hast loved them
even as thou hast loved me.

As St. Paul does in today's first reading (Ephesians 3:14-21), may we work and pray for perfect unity through the truth of Christ.


I kneel before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory
to be strengthened with power
through his Spirit in the inner self,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
that you, rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend
with all the holy ones
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him
who is able to accomplish far more
than all we ask or imagine,
by the power at work within us,
to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, forever and ever.
Amen.