Church Unity - Remembering Our Roots

From the Catholic Liturgy for the 3^rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Jan. 22, 2017 – Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. 1 Cor. 1:10-17. St. Paul bemoans the divisions that have crept up among the early Christians and begs them to remember who and what they are: members of the one Body of Christ, which is the Church. In similar fashion on the secular level, our nation is experiencing division and we need to cease and desist; to remember who we are as Americans and why we exist as a People.  We must look to our roots: a united people gathered together from various places to embrace, defend and live in freedom, guarding the inalienable rights given to us by our Creator. Along this same theme of unity found in today’s second reading, we realize that we are in the midst of the 101^st Annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Jan. 18-25). We each need to look at our baptismal roots and remember who we are and Whose we are. We must embrace what it means to be a Christian in general and more specifically, what it means to be a Catholic Christian. The Body of Christ on earth is fractured and cannot give effective witness to the One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism proclaimed by the New Testament until this woundedness is healed. Each of us has a part to play in the healing of this wound.