May 21, 2025

Fr. John Riccardo

This past Sunday eyes and ears across the world were tuned in to Vatican City State and the piazza in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. There Pope Leo XIV celebrated the inauguration of his ministry as successor of the fisherman, friend, and disciple of Jesus.

In his homily, he spoke frequently about unity. “I would like,” he said, “that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world.” He went on later to add, “Love and unity: these are the two dimensions of the mission entrusted to Peter by Jesus.” Finally, he proclaimed, “For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion, and fraternity within the world.”

This unity, then, has two dimensions. On the one hand, the Holy Father is calling for a greater unity within the Church itself, so often divided by various kinds of divisions. These divisions are not only harmful to the body that is the Church but also to the world at large. This is because unity has another dimension. The Church is supposed to be a sign of unity and communion for the world, the means by which the human race, scattered by sin and more, is not only reconciled to God but to each other. In fact, nothing else can accomplish this end, so desperately needed right now in a culture and world that is so prone to demonize “the other.” When Pope Leo says that the Church is to be “a small leaven…within the world” he means that disciples are supposed to interact with and touch the world, just as leaven interacts and touches the dough, making the world “rise” and become more genuinely human.

When the Church is divided, however, it is a “scandal.” Scandalon, in Greek, is properly speaking the word for the trigger in a snare that is used to catch an animal. It then becomes used for any impediment placed in a person’s way that causes him to stumble or fall. Division among disciples of Jesus, lack of unity within the Church, is such an impediment to those outside living the nightmare that is life apart from God, and created by Him to know His love and to belong to His family.

This kind of unity is not possible apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit not only enables us to know who the Father is, and what Jesus has done for us, but forges us into a body that transcends any and every barrier that divides people into “us” and “them.” We see this over and over in the Acts of the Apostles. A world that had previously been divided (male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free) is turned upside down by the waters of baptism and the power of the Spirit and brought together as one. And the Roman Empire noticed!

At the center of this unity is wholehearted allegiance to Jesus. An allegiance that is given to Him because quite simply nobody and nothing else has done for us what Jesus has done for us. He and He alone has rescued us from the powers of Death, Sin and Satan, and so He claims our loyalty like no other.

As we draw ever closer to the Solemnity of Pentecost, let us pray that the Holy Spirit will fall afresh and in power on us individually, on our parishes, our dioceses and on the Church as a whole across the world. May the Spirit enable us to see anew who Jesus is and what He has done. May the Spirit move us to surrender to Him anew. May the Spirit move us to repent for our sins against the unity of the Church, whether by speech, post, or action. And may the Spirit do what only He can and make us one – so that the world might be attracted to the Church and come to experience the love of the Father and be rescued from the emptiness, loneliness, fear and anxiety that is found in life apart from God.

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