Year B: Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.

One of my activities in recent weeks has been to tell people about the experience I lived at the Synodal Assembly in Rome last October. With over 400 people from all over the world, it was a wonderful event of conversations and sharing on the topic of synodality, that is, the topic of how are we journeying together as church, how are we getting on with one another, how are we reaching out to others. One of the aspects that I particularly enjoyed was the presence of delegates from other church who were present – Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Orthodox Christians. They were fully involved in our conversations and we gained much from their presence.

I mention this because today’s Mass is being celebrated during the week that for over 100 years now has been dedicated to prayer for Christian Unity. Jesus’ prayer “may they all be one” has been a key focus for Christians of all churches in the past hundred years and especially for Catholics since the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis said some time ago, “The awareness of ecumenism today is such that one cannot think of journeying on the path of faith without the company of brothers and sisters from other Churches or ecclesial communities. And this is a great thing. Never alone. We cannot do it.”

I was delighted during the week to meet up with church leaders of various churches in Britain and Ireland. There’s always a joy to be together. I was also delighted to watch the inspiring video-message that Archbishop Eamon Martin and Archbishop John McDowell from Armagh did for this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It’s available on You Tube. But I appreciate many of us could find ourselves asking “I don’t really know any Protestants” or “there’s none really around my area…” so “how can I promote Christian unity?”.

Today’s Gospel provides us with an answer – the heart of Christian unity is how we follow Jesus. Simon, Andrew, James and John, became promoters of Christian unity by becoming followers of Jesus because the heart of Jesus’ calling is unity. He was the first person ever to introduce the notion that the world is one family under one God who is father of all and we are all sisters and brothers. What we notice is these first disciples, even though they were well established in their careers, changed direction. It was a radical response. Like the people of Ninevah they turned around and said “yes” to Jesus. They recognised what St. Paul emphasises in the Second Reading. The world as we know it is passing, it’s important to answer God in the now.

One way we can promote Christian unity in our lives is to take the Gospel more seriously. The Gospel is the Word of God. It is applicable in all situations and in every time. It has been said that the more we live the Gospel the more we will be united. If we increase our living out of the Gospel, the Word of God (and today is the Sunday of the Word), the more we will be reaching into the root of unity with our sisters and brothers of our own and other churches. I remember that Pope Paul VI used to recommend that you take home the Sunday readings and take one sentence from it for the week and let that sentence guide you.  Even one sentence of the Gospel can be like spiritual food to keep us nourished. Nowadays there are many apps that provide us with Scripture reflections such as the “pray as you go” app.

These past weeks, I’ve been keeping the phrase “love God and love your neighbour” in mind as it was recommended by the Christians of Burkina Faso who prepared the prayer materials for the Week of Prayer this year. “Love God and love your neighbour” – it has helped me keep a focus on who it is I live for and a focus on the one duty we have towards our neighbour – to love them as we love ourselves. I read recently of an experience of a woman who had a particularly difficult boss. She remembered the phrase from Jesus reported in Matthew’s Gospel: “whatever you do to the least, you do to me”. She realised in that context the boss who was so annoying to her was the “least” in her life and she made a big effort to see and love Jesus in him, and that included speaking the truth in love as well as in persevering in love.

So, in this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, let’s remember we can do our part, praying for Christian unity but, above all, reading the Gospel, the Word of God and letting it shape the way we think and approach issues.

Going back to the Synod last October, Pope Francis commented that unity is growing silently in the Church. Yes, indeed, every time we put apply the Gospel to some aspect of our lives, unity grows.