Uniting in the Lord

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 5th week in Easter time

May 5, 2021: Acts 15: 1-6; John 15: 1-8

The responsorial psalm invites one to go to Jerusalem with rejoicing! And we see two people going there in today's first reading: Paul and Barnabas, however, not with rejoicing but they go with a crisis. A noble fact is that they are insistent that they wouldn't burden the people unnecessarily. The forward thinking, right priorities and empathy for the believers are a few of the salient qualities that stand out in this passage. Apart from the crisis and the solution that they sought, the clear cut lesson is to understand the method of facing and resolving a crisis in 'Christ'ian terms. 

Banners and posters, anonymous letters and abusive posts, indecent demonstrations and political insinuations... none of these were used when the crisis arose; much less, stopping masses half way through, walking out of liturgical assemblies and other un-Christ-ian ways of showing protest. It is not to point a finger at someone and accuse them of impropriety. It is simply to draw attention to how the first Christian community handled crisis!

They simply got together. They united in the Lord, to find out what the Lord willed for them as one family of God. We cannot bear fruit apart from the Lord; we cannot bear much of them without uniting as one heart and one mind in the Lord! That readiness to unite gave a moral authority to the Early Christian Community and made them true and attractive witnesses (cf. Acts 2:47). They believed in what they heard from Jesus: away from me, you cannot bear fruit. But today...some have ideologies and personalities, which and who seem greater than Christ; much more truthful than the Truth himself; much more light giving than the Light himself; much more life-giving that the Life himself....what a sad situation! It explains why the Church is no more as attractive as it was in the initial days of the First  Christians!

Come a crisis or a situation of doubt, what do we tend to do? Spread opinions, malign the other and gather a support team for ourselves? Or, get together as persons of God, unite in the Lord and find out what the Lord wants from us, as ONE people of God? 

What importance do I attach to uniting in the Lord?