Keeping the Word.

St. Augustine says that “it means more for Mary to have been a disciple of Christ than to have been the mother of Christ” (Sermon 72). Christian discipleship forms a natural alliance with the one who pondered the word of God in her heart and whose will was knit together with God’s will. All who hear God’s word and keep it are family, as Jesus says, “my mother and my brothers.” Baffling then, isn’t it, when Christians neglect the call to unity and the command to love?

Last fall the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued its pastoral letter on racism, “Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love,” a plea to end the mindless, often willful, unjust divisions that persist in America. Ironically, hours after the document was issued, Catholics were not so charitably taking sides on social media—on the one hand, those who support the long history of social justice and the prophetic voice of the Church, and on the other, those who see such articulations as “liberal agenda.”

A sad response. But let’s not fall through the trapdoor. Maybe our call is to continue to invite everyone to the center of worship, to treat all men and women fairly, whatever their color, nationality, or sexual orientation—yes, even those people we disagree with most profoundly. It is a tough one. But how can we refuse to be mothers, brothers, and sisters to the Body of Christ? A mother loves all her children.

Fr. Guerric DeBona. Taken from Give Us This Day.

Fr. Guerric DeBona, OSB, is novice/junior master at Saint Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana and professor of homiletics in the Seminary and School of Theology.