What is our task in this world as children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus?
Our task is reconciliation.
Wherever we go we see divisions among people - in families, communities, cities, countries, and continents. All these divisions are tragic reflections of our separation from God. The truth that all people belong together as members of one family under God is seldom visible. Our sacred task is to reveal that truth in the reality of everyday life. Not just by our words or showing up on Sunday with a smile plastered on our face, but by our actions.Be Reconciled.
Why is that our task? Because God sent Christ to reconcile us with God and to give us the task of reconciling people with one another. As people reconcile with God through Christ we have been given the ministry of reconciliation" (see: 2 Corinthians 5:18). So whatever we do the main question is, Does it lead to reconciliation among people? Does our current actions and activities bring unity or division? Are we striving for peace, as much as it depends on us? How can we hold one another accountable to the life of peace and reconciliation?Email Subscription:
You can’t pray for unity and expect God to heed your prayer if you, through your actions, words, and thoughts, continue fostering disunity; you can’t pray for peace and expect God to answer your prayer if you continue seeing some people as enemies rather than friends; and you can’t pray for tolerance and acceptance and expect God to grant your prayer if you segregate yourself from those with differing and opposing points of view, choosing only to hear the voices of those with whom you agree and who agree with you.
Christ implores us to love our enemies. What does such “love” require of us if and when we choose, choose, to “practice what Christ preaches”? Perhaps, St. Francis of Assisi says it best on a variety of levels:
“Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and
it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.” AMEN