”In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity”

Today at Holy Mass in the first reading we hear from the Prophet Ezekiel. We are told of a time when a man brings everyone together…One mind…One heart….One family…Reading this passage brought me such joy because our world today is so divided…Only in God can such unity exist among diversity….

“Thus says the Lord GOD: I will take the children of Israel from among the nations to which they have come, and gather them from all sides to bring them back to their land. I will make them one nation upon the land, in the mountains of Israel, and there shall be one prince for them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms. No longer shall they defile themselves with their idols, their abominations, and all their transgressions. I will deliver them from all their sins of apostasy, and cleanse them so that they may be my people and I may be their God. My servant David shall be prince over them, and there shall be one shepherd for them all; they shall live by my statutes and carefully observe my decrees. They shall live on the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where their fathers lived; they shall live on it forever, they, and their children, and their children’s children, with my servant David their prince forever. I will make with them a covenant of peace; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will multiply them, and put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling shall be with them; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Thus the nations shall know that it is I, the LORD, who make Israel holy, when my sanctuary shall be set up among them forever.”

“Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, says the LORD, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.”

Each of us were created in a unique and unrepeatable way….However, what we have in common is we were all created by God - Our common Father…There is nothing wrong with being “different” but when we forget that we were created by God, for God and to be with God for all eternity - Something breaks deep within the individual as well as in society…That is the source of all our division!….A lot of “lip service” is given to the word “tolerance” today…But in the end it is just “lip service”….Our world pretends to respect differences - A lot of virtue signaling is projected but under it is hatred and power driven authoritarianism….A dictatorship of relativism prevails today and secular humanism is the new religion of our age…….At the heart of this “new religion” and the “god” it created is a new “commandment”….“There is no objective right and wrong”…And because this dogma exists, there is no unity…..In Catholic teaching, there is an understanding that all of us are different, yet we were all made by the same God….This is the only way to navigate the issue of societal fragmentation, which we face today as a people…”In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity”…Our world today has forget “the essentials”…And that is why we are fragmented….But fear not…..The man whom the Prophet Ezekiel told us about in the first reading from Mass today has come and walked the earth…The “seeds” of unity have been planted deep within the soil….One day from those seeds, we will see the fruit promised to us…Until that day, we must hold fast to a rock solid foundation and build upon it....From that foundation true tolerance and unity will flourish…Because without a strong foundation, a structure will collapse but as long as we build upon a solid foundation, our “House” will remain…..”In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity”

“Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, proclaim it on distant isles, and say: He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together, he guards them as a shepherd his flock.”