Unity in Love

Since before Christ’s Holy Passion, He has been urging us to unity in love. In the twenty centuries since, the Church has been fighting to maintain unity. We have not always been successful, so we have also been fighting to restore unity where it has been lost.

The Lord said to his disciples, “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

John 14.10-21

As we learn from today’s reading, love is the necessary ingredient in unity. Love leads to obedience. Love leads to loyalty. Love leads to glory. Love leads to comfort. Love leads to God because God is love.

The age-old question, ‘what is love,’ can be answered in today’s reading. If we want to know love, we need to know God as He is. God is unity in love. The Holy Trinity is the definition of love. Three persons each in total unity of love and belief.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are always of one mind, and one will. There is never a time when the Trinity is not united, either in love or action. Where the Father is, there is the Son and the Holy Spirit.

If we want to experience love, we must unite our desire with God and each other. Christ called us to the same ‘type’ of unity as the Trinity. The Holy Trinity is united in their will. If we desire something different than God or the Church, then we are not united. Then we do not love.

This desire for unity is captured in every Divine Liturgy, “Let us love one another that with oneness of mind we may confess, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One is essence and undivided.” Oneness of mind can only come from love. It can only come from God.

So, when someone belittles our fight for unity in the Church, it is because unity in love is not the goal. Unity requires sacrificing our ‘agenda and goals’ for God’s agenda and the Church. The Church is guided by the Holy Spirit to maintain the Truth of God. We are united in truth.

We can all agree that we should be united in truth. What we seem not to be able to agree on is what is truth. The Church makes a distinction between the truth of God, called dogma, and how we experience the truth. As long as we don’t change dogma, we have truth.

If you find yourself not in unity with the Church, the first question you should ask yourself is, “Am I acting in love?” Most of the time our disunity is a result of selfishness. Selfishness is not unity in God, and it can never be the Truth, because God is never selfish. Selfishness is not love.

If you desire unity with God and the Church, then it begins with love, not you. The Church is guided by the Holy Spirit through the Bishops of the Church in Council, not any one Bishop, and certainly not any one member of the Church. Unity begins with love, not selfishness.