Father: may they all be one (17:21 (x 2), 22, 23; 11).
Just before entering into his Passion, at the end of the Last Supper, Jesus prays that his redeeming mission be perfectly consummated. What did he come for? Certainly, it was to take away our sins, and to save us from death. But that was, as it were, only the first necessary stage. The ultimate goal of Jesus was to bring us to God. That is, Jesus came to bring each of us individually, and also all of us together, to God. He came to draw all who belong to him into his own relationship with his Father. He came to give us his own Holy Spirit; the Spirit of love and of unity; the Spirit who, in his own Divine Person, perfectly expresses the love that exists between the Father and the Son, and the unity that binds them together in one.
The prayer of Jesus cannot fail; the will of God cannot be frustrated. So we believe that all the Saints in heaven now enjoy perfect unity among themselves, and with God, in perfect love for one another, and for God. We know too that all of us by our Baptism and Confirmation have received the Holy Spirit. In principle, the Holy Spirit unites us with Jesus, unites us with God, enables us to love as Jesus loves. In the Holy Spirit we can love both God and our fellow Christians, and indeed all our fellow human beings, with the very love of Jesus Christ, powerfully at work within us. Of course also we know that the path of this love, this work of the Holy Spirit, can be obstructed in many ways: by our pride, our self-love, our persisting and unconquered sinfulness. But our own failures cannot cancel or invalidate the gift, once given. Nor do they prevent God from calling us, moving us, inviting us, ever anew, to grow in this grace we have been given. We have to let the Holy Spirit take ever greater hold of our hearts and our minds, until with the Saints we are able to shine with divine light, divine glory. Then, in our lives, in our witness, perhaps above all in our sufferings, we will be able to manifest the face of Jesus to the world.
If we Catholics believe in the unity of the Saints, and in the presence of the Holy Spirit in the baptised, we believe also that the Holy Catholic Church herself is divinely constituted in unity. This unity of the Church, we say, is both the will of Jesus Christ, and a gift of the Holy Spirit, which cannot be lost. The Church now on earth is one with Jesus, and one with the Church in heaven, and one also in her visible, public expression. St. Paul teaches this doctrine, just as St. John does, but using of course his own very different language. Paul several times offers us the image of the Body. You are Christ’s Body! he tells the Corinthians (12:27). And as a human Body is one, though it has many different members, with different functions, so Christ’s Church is one. We sing this in the Creed, as a doctrine of our faith: “Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam”. The Church is one in doctrine, one in ecclesial government, and one in her sacramental worship. If then, as a minimum, we profess the Catholic faith, and abide in communion with her legitimate Pastors, and faithfully receive her sacraments, we are already living within the unity for which Christ prayed. When we receive Christ’s Body in Holy Communion, we express, and confirm, and strengthen our unity with Him and with the whole Catholic Church, in a supremely efficacious way. Since Christ’s Body always bears the Holy Spirit, Holy Communion also expresses, confirms, strengthens our possession of the Spirit, and of the love which He is, and which He pours into our hearts.
But just as baptised individuals can contradict by their lives what they have received from God, so this can happen also within the Church. Then her face, in principle immaculate in beauty, becomes sullied and defiled. So people find it hard to believe in her holiness, when they see her official representatives, even in large numbers, publicly exposed as criminals. They find it hard to believe in her unity also, when they observe Bishops and Cardinals openly denouncing one another; and when they note how Catholics seem nowadays to be divided up into warring factions. They wonder if what the Creed says can still be true, when they notice false doctrine being taught from the pulpit; and the sacraments trivialised and defiled through liturgical abuse, and influential voices within the Church being raised for her doctrines to be changed, and the moral law relativised, in order to conform better to modern secular ways of thought and behaviour.
In this way, until the end of time, new wounds are inflicted on the suffering Body of Christ. Unfortunately, throughout much of her history, the Church has appeared in this state: Christ’s seamless garment torn about by internal feuds and dissensions and conflicts. Well: the Church can be either small or large; persecuted or influential; badly or well governed. She can enjoy periods of vigorous growth and spiritual energy, or be weighed down by loss of confidence, lukewarmness and inertia. But the prayer of Christ always holds. It applies to all of us even now. It’s our promise, and it gives us both our hope and our task. So St. Paul teaches in his letter to the Ephesians: there is one Body, one Spirit, ... one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God (4:4-6). But also he begs his readers: walk worthily of your vocation; give your whole attention to preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
So: it will always remain necessary for us to belong to the holy Catholic Church: to be one with her, to love her, to pray for her, to suffer for her, and to suffer with her. And we must build her up, be fruitful members of her, strengthen her unity, above all by seeking union with God, and love for God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus speaks about how in heaven we will always see his glory (v. 24). The man Jesus possessed this glory while on earth, though it was hidden to all except those whose eyes were enlightened by faith. Somewhat analogously, the unity and holiness of the Church is yet to be brought finally to perfection, but in heaven it will be everlastingly revealed. Then at last we will all be one in Jesus, and one in his Spirit. Then the eternal love of the Father for the Son will fall upon us, without hindrance, and we will be in God, and God will be in us: to our limitless joy, and fulfilment, and glory, forever.