Communion in the Spirit

June 5: Thursday of the 7th week of Easter:

A thought for those who want to reveal the risen Jesus in their lifestyle.

Acts 22:30, 23:6-11; Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; John 17:20-26

“I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” John 17:22

The Father and Son live “in the unity of the Holy Spirit.” Although each of the Three Persons has everything the others have, we say that the Father is in some way the source of Being and Goodness, the Son, as “Word,” the source of Truth, and the Spirit, as Love, the source of Unity.

Likewise, we say God’s Church has being and goodness from the Father, truth from the Son as Word, and unity from the Spirit of love—although we know that in everything they do for us, the Three Persons always act together and are never separated.

Our communion with each other as a Christian community is a “common union” of sharing in the same divine life, acting through the gifts of faith, hope and love. Most deeply, we are united, not by professing the same human words in our “Profession of Faith,” or by conforming our human behavior to the same set of laws, but by sharing together in the invisible mystery of the same divine Life, the same divine Light, the same divine Love.

When that common sharing becomes visible in words and actions recognizable as inspired by the “Gift of the Spirit,” then we experience “communion in the Holy Spirit.”

PRAY: “Lord, make us one in spirit through your Spirit.”

PRACTICE: Look for signs of divine life in everyone.