Reflection
The world is eternally filled with division. We fragile humans cling to our values, our property, our reputations, and our status to the point of violence. These attachments are why relationships die and wars start.
These attachments are why Willy McBride, the Irish 19 year-old slaughtered on the battlefields of France during the first world war, went to his grave too soon. I encourage you take a moment to listen to the Irish ballad, “The Greenfields of France,” on YouTube to feel the pain of brutal, senseless wars.
The attachments are also the cause of broken friendships, business relationships, parish fellowship, and family bonds fractured by members who refuse to reconcile.
Today’s reading from Acts offers a glimpse of an alternative. In the days after Jesus’ resurrection and following the first Pentecost, a serious split happened in the early Church. It was over the question whether Christianity was for everyone, or for Jews alone?
People took sides. Words were exchanged. Would the community of believers be torn apart, never to be reconciled?
As people of faith these early followers of Jesus did something remarkable. They listened to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and they listened to the “God-inspired moments” of one another.
When Paul, Barnabas, and some of the others returned from non-Jewish territories to report on the conversion of the Gentiles to their Jewish communities, it brought joy to so many, but the Pharisees among the followers of Jesus didn’t understand what was happening. But, in time, something historic and miraculous occurred. The faithful sat down and listen to one another.
This kind of listening requires a detachment from our own agendas, schemes, ideas, prestige, and desires to win. It means surrendering our fear of losing and not being esteemed in victory.
For most of us this can be extremely difficult. But, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught us, courage is refusing to be enslaved by fear.
Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe said, “The greatest gifts will come from those with whom we disagree, if we dare to listen to them.”
Pope Francis understood and valued listening so much he promoted a synodal model for the entire Catholic Church. He understood how the Holy Spirit works in us: we sit down with one another, recognized Christ in one another, and listen to one another. The only agenda is to listen, listen, and listen some more. This is how we stay united and live in peace.
Nuclear weapons, whose very ownership is condemned by the Church as immoral, high tech weapons, the tools of war, navies and armies do not bring this peace. General/President Dwight Eisenhower understood this and condemned the military-industrial complex as a mindless waste that ends without lasting peace.
Peace only happens when we do what leaders of the early Church did: listened to one another with the highest respect possible and let the Holy Spirit guide us in divine ways.
This applies to nations as much as to our homes, where we work and study, our neighborhoods, and social circles.
This peace happens because we stay attached to Jesus, living in each of us. As St John quotes Jesus in today’s Gospel, He is the vine. When we all abide in Christ and he abides in all of us we bear much fruit.
Cardinal Radcliffe adds, “. . . we may be divided by our different hopes, but if we listen to the Lord and to each other, seeking to understand His will for the Church and the world, we shall be united in a hope that transcends our disagreements and be touched by one whom St. Augustine called that ‘beauty so ancient and so new . . .I tasted you and now hunger and thirst for you; you touched me and I have burned for your peace.’”
