Reconciliation: Oneness and Integrity

WORD 2day: Saturday, 10th week in Ordinary time

June 14, 2025 - 2 Corinthians 5: 14-21; Matthew 5: 33-37

The Word today has some oft cited quotes from St. Paul - the love of Christ overwhems us, those who are in Christ are a new creation, for our sake God made the sinless one into sin... all these amounting to that one key experience: reconciliation; that God has reconciled us to Godself in Christ. What does this Reconciliation mean.

The first level of its significance is apparent - very clearly and obviously explained by Paul in his letter: that God has reconciled us to Godself, non holding our faults against us! This is the oneness that God has effected, wanting is to be One with God - Reconciliation is that oneness with God, that belonging to God, that unity with God, which is a crucial meaning of salvation. 

There is yet another level of significance that this reconciliation can have - the reconciliation that is from within. When Paul declares, those who are in Christ are new creation, he insists upon this reconciliation, that we are reconciled within us, that we have no duplicity within us, that we have nothing within us that sports conflict. As Jesus explains in the Gospel - when we wish to mean yes, we say yes; and when we say no, we mean no! That is reconciliation, a simplicity that can be called Integrity. 

Integrity is a key element of new creations in Christ, the creations, the beings, the persons who have nothing that is in conflict within, or with anything else! There is this perfect harmony that can be a great spiritual experience, the unparalleled experience of salvation, a Reconciliation from within. When God reconciles us with Godself, we are called to grow into reconciled beings from within, persons of integrity - that shall indeed be a sign of the Ambassadors for Christ.