That They May Be One

At the start of this week, Catholics celebrated the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Pope Leo gave a homily for the occasion in which he encouraged “every Christian to become a builder of unity” after the example of those two great saints. The week also saw the opening session of an extraordinary consistory of cardinals – a formal meeting of 178 cardinals, which was called to address “a world marked by deepening division.” And, less happily, the week also included the Society of St. Pius X’s decision to go through with their choice to consecrate four new bishops without a pontifical mandate – an act of explicit disobedience to the pope’s authority. As a result, the unity of the Church has been front and center in Catholic news, in a way that invites this question: why is it so important that we pursue unity? And what kind of unity are we really looking for?

On one hand, the answer to that question may seem self-evident. There’s clearly a kind of natural or human good in being more rather than less united. All of us would prefer to keep free of destructive conflict, for instance. But while that non-destructive impulse is a reasonable one, it isn’t a very strong positive reason to pursue unity.

The Church’s great concern for unity has to do with something much more important, something much more spiritual: in fact it has to do with the Holy Spirit himself. The Church is not just an aggregate of people who have agreed to agree or to get along alright. And it isn’t made up of an artificial unity that comes from various ways of trying to keep people together. The Church’s unity is real and genuine – the only true unity in humanity – because it stems from the oneness of God himself. The Holy Spirit inhabits the Church, and lives in each believer. And so we are united not by merely human ties, but because we are each united at the deepest possible ontological level to God’s Spirit. The Spirit dwelling in us is unified with itself and therefore unites us in an organic and living unity. Hence the idea of the “mystical body of Christ.” The Church is a genuine body whose parts are not just formally or legally connected, but share the same life. This unity, brought about by the presence of God’s spirit, is one of the most precious gifts of God to the human race.

Thus Christ’s words: "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:20-23).

So the point for us is not that unity just keeps the peace – Christ is not interested in unity on mere human terms, or unity for unity’s sake – but that it brings us into the truth of God’s life and word. This is also why disunity is such a dangerous thing. When we are not living according to this reality of who God is and who he is within us, we are betraying the Holy Spirit. The unity of Jesus’s followers is meant to serve as one of the most important signs of his presence, as the witness of God inhabiting his people.  

Pope Leo’s encouragement, then, might be taken on those terms: we’re not meant to pursue unity in the sense of just trying to get along well with others. We’re meant to pursue it in a much more robust, profound, and difficult way – as the sign and means of our sanctification; the sign and means of our being joined to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit himself.