DAILY MEDITATION: “A large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem,..."

Liturgical day: Thursday 2nd in Ordinary Time

Gospel text (Mk 3,7-12): Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples. A large number of people followed from Galilee and from Judea. Hearing what he was doing, a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him. He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him. And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, “You are the Son of God.” He warned them sternly not to make him known.

“A large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon”

Fr. Melcior QUEROL i Solà
(Ribes de Freser, Girona, Spain)

Today, the baptisms by John in the Jordan still recent, we should all remember the kind of conversion of our baptism. We have all been baptized into one Lord, into one only faith, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1Co 12, 13). Here we have the ideal of unity: to form a single body, to be a single unity in Christ, so that the world may believe.

In today's Gospel we see that “A large crowd from Galilee followed him" and also "a great number of people” coming from other places (cf. Mk 3,7-8) are surrounding the Lord. And He paid heed to all procuring, without exception, their good. We have to keep this in mind during the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Let us realize how, throughout centuries, we Christians have divided ourselves into Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and a long etc. of Christian confessions. A historic sin against one of the essential points of our Church: its unity.

But, let us face today's eclesial reality. Our bishoprics, our parishes, our Christian groups... Are we really one only thing? Is our type of unity really a motive for conversion of those away from the Church? Jesus pleaded to the Father: “That they also may be in us, that the world may believe” (Jn 17, 21). Our challenge is that the pagans all over may see a group of believers relate one another, gathering by the Holy Spirit, under the Church of Christ: “All the believers were one in heart and mind.” (cf. Acts 4,32-34).

Let us remember that, as a fruit of the Eucharist, the unity of the Assembly is to manifest itself along with the union with Jesus of each one of us, as we are fed by the same Bread to be a one and only body. Therefore, what the sacraments stand for, and the grace therein instilled, demand from us gestures of communion towards all others. Our conversion is to the Trinity unit (which is a gift coming from Heaven) and our sanctified task cannot avert the gestures of communion, of understanding, of welcome and forgiveness towards our brothers.

Source: evangeli.net