Votive Mass for Christian Unity

 

One day, when I was speaking with a group of students from Loras College one of them asked me, “Why are you a Catholic?”  I had to pause and reflect, then I replied that I am a Catholic because my parents were Catholics and they raised me in the faith.  I remain a Catholic especially because of my love for Christ in the Eucharist. 

Then I said that if Christianity didn’t exist, if Christ had never come, I would want to be a Jew, because they have the Word of God, the Hebrew Bible, and everytime we memorize the Words of God and let them bubble up in our hearts we have union with God, a real communion.  

Christianity is the apex of Judaism, it gives us communion under both forms, as the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist and as the Word of God dwelling in our hearts. That is why we pray during the octave for Christian Unity that  the whole world may become one in faith and love in the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.