May they be One

Reflection on John 17:20-26

There is this story about how Jesus once went to a football match with a friend. The match was between the Catholic Bombers and the Protestant Rockets. The Catholic Bombers were the first to score a goal. Jesus cheered heartily. Then in the second half, the Protestant Rockets equalised. Jesus again cheered heartily. The friend was confused. He asked Jesus which side he was on. Jesus answered, "None. I am just enjoying the game."

The moral of this story is that the disunity among Christians is not willed by Jesus. That is clear from today's Gospel passage. Jesus wanted unity for his followers so much that he even prayed for it. He prayed that they might be one as he and the Father are one, "may they be so completely one, so that the world will realise that it was you who sent me and that I have loved them as much as you loved me."

The disunity among Christians has been a veritable scandal. That is what the Second Vatican Council called it. It has been a stumbling block (that is the meaning of the world "scandal") in the way of proclamation of the Good News. That proclamation would have fared a lot better if Christians did not speak in so many discordant voices.

Thanks be to God, Christian leaders around the world have decided to do something to bring an end to the divisions among Christians. They started doing something around 1948. It is called "Ecumenism" or the "Ecumenical Movement". "Ecumenism" is the name given to all efforts that are aimed at progressively narrowing the divisions among Christians until we become one again, in accordance with the wish and prayer of Jesus for his followers.

Years ago, there was a Consistory -that is a meeting of all the Cardinals with the Pope in the Vatican. Top of the agenda was Ecumenism and how to move it forward. In Nigeria, Catholic Bishops are reaching out to Protestant denominations individually or collectively, within the framework of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

The actions of our leaders challenge all Christians to reach out to one another across denominational divides. It is true that we cannot yet do everything in common. We must not do everything in common yet since there are still divisions among us, and those divisions are real and serious. We cannot, for instance, share the Eucharist yet with our Protestant brethren because it does not mean exactly the same thing to all of us.

But there are still a lot of things that we have in common and a lot of things that we can do in common. We can pray together for various religious and civic intentions, including that of Christian reunion. We can give joint Christian witness on issues of social justice and human development. We can collaborate in areas like education and health care delivery, among others. We can certainly show a great deal more love, understanding and respect for one another than we have done in former times.

Whatever we do along these lines will contribute in no small measure towards fulfilling our Lord's wish and prayer, that we may be one, as he and the Father are one.

Peace I Bequeath to You

Reflection on John 14:23-29

The late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, will be remembered for many things. Most of, all, he will probably be remembered as an Apostle of Peace. That is because of so many unprecedented steps he took in the interest of world peace. During a trip to Syria, the Pope did the unthinkable: he took off his shoes, walked into a mosque in Damascus, the capital of Syria, to pray at the tomb of St John the Baptist. He was accompanied by the grand Mufti, the highest ranking Islamic cleric in Syria. While it is true that the Pope went to pray at the tomb of St John the Baptist, it is equally true that his gesture was a powerful statement on behalf of peace between two of the world's great religions, Christianity and Islam. Both religions have a history of hostility going back at least ten centuries, to the time of the Crusades.

While in Syria, the Pope made a passionate appeal for a cessation of hostilities between the Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Both groups have been locked in violent conflict that has claimed thousands of lives over the years.

In all his efforts for world peace the Pope was only following in the footsteps of his Master, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Peace was one thing that must have been dear to the heart of Jesus because, time and time again, he wished peace for his followers. He did so before his passion, as we read in our Gospel passage today. He did the same in the evening of the very day that he rose from the dead (John 20:20-21). When he sent out seventy-two disciples, Jesus instructed them thus; "Whatever house you enter, let your first words be, 'Peace to this house!' " (Luke 10:5). One of the eight beatitudes pronounced by Jesus was "Blessed are the peacemakers: they shall be called children of God" (Matthew 5:9).

If peace meant so much to our Lord, then we can understand why the Pope, his Vicar on earth, should take it upon himself to be an Apostle of Universal Peace in our time. The Church as a whole is being challenged to follow the leadership of the Holy Father in this regard. Every son and daughter of the Church must share in the passion of Jesus and the Pope for peace in our world. None should be indifferent simply because we are not engaged in open warfare within our own country or with -outsiders. The painful reality staring us in the face is that many countries in our world today do not know any peace.

Several of those countries are in Africa. The men and women and children who are daily losing their lives or limbs or property in those countries are our kith and kin, our own flesh and blood. Their suffering is our suffering, their pain is our pain. We should be concerned about them. We may not be in a position to do anything physically about ending the conflicts i1i those lands. But we can pray the God of Peace to restore peace to them, and quickly. If that is all we do for the cause of peace in the Congo, Sudan, the Middle East, it will already be much.

Can it even be said that we are at peace here in Nigeria? Not really; not with all the recurrent incidents of violence arising from ethnic, political and especially religious differences. The memories of the religious clashes in Jos in the not-too-distant past are still fresh in our minds. We are already being treated to threats of war and bloodshed during the next national elections in 2011. Those threats should not be taken lightly. These are more reasons why we should join the Pope in his crusade for world peace by doing everything we can to promote peace in whatever way we can, beginning right where we are: in our family, our community and our country at large.

The Christian Trademark

Reflection on John 13:31-35

It is often said that Jesus gave a new commandment to his disciples. As a matter of fact, that is what Jesus himself says in our Gospel passage of today. That new commandment is the commandment of love. But how can it be new? Were people not required to love before the time of Jesus? Certainly! The Jews had two commandments of love enunciated in Deuteronomy 6:5 (love of God) and Leviticus 19:18 (love of neighbour). Even Jesus described them as the first and second greatest commandments of the Law (Mt. 22:37-39; Mk. 12:29-31). So how was the commandment given by Jesus new?

The newness of Jesus' commandment lay in its range and application. For instance, whereas the neighbour that a Jew was required to love was another Jew, for a disciple of Christ, the neighbour is every man and woman, friend and foe alike. A Jew had no business loving a Roman or a Samaritan. Not only was he not required to love his enemy, he was even entitled to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Not so for a Christian. For a Christian, even a Samaritan is neighbour to a Jew, as we learn in the parable of the "Good Samaritan" (Luke 10: 29-37). In our own context today, we might say that even a Muslim is neighbour to a Christian.

Also, the Jewish commandment of love was "You must love your neighbour as yourself" (Lev. 19: 18). Jesus' new commandment is rather "Love one another as I have loved you" (John 15: 12) When you hear what comes next, you will know that it goes far beyond loving your neighbour as yourself. In the next verse Jesus says, "No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). And Jesus went ahead to show it by actually dying on the cross for us, his friends. That is how he has loved us.

If Jesus then commands us to love one another as he has loved us, it means that we must be prepared to lay down our life for our neighbour. There have been cases recorded in history when someone actually did that physically, someone actually died in place of another. What is more likely to happen, though, in our case is that we shall be required to lay down our life for our neighbour morally, symbolically. What that means is that we shall be required to make sacrifices, to deny ourselves certain things that we want, but someone else needs; or indeed something that we need, but someone else needs it more than we do. The thing that we may be called upon to sacrifice or deny ourselves may be material, like money, food, clothes, accommodation; or non-material, like our time, comfort, or simply a listening ear. We must be prepared to love one another as Jesus has loved us with all these things. According to Jesus in today's Gospel passage, that is how everyone will know that we are his disciples. It is the Christian Trade Mark!