Blog # 408 Unity in Truth
Just imagine for a moment the tallest mountain in the world. Imagine the peak of the mountain, shaped as a cone. Imagine several groups of people climbing up the mountain from several different points on ground level thousands of feet below. Imagine them not as in a race to the top but independently of one another all seeking to climb to the top of the mountain. If you had made a drawing of what you had imagined it would be easy to see how, as each group climbed higher and higher up the mountain, they would be getting closer to others climbing on another side of the cone-shaped peak.
In doing myself what I suggested you do with your imagination in that first paragraph of this blog I see an analogous illustration of the case of the many sincere and dedicated groups of people belonging to various religious bodies throughout the world, including Christians among them. They are all related to the others in that they are starting on the same common level ground all over the world. They have much in common human needs, love, sleep, nourishment, the experience of living in a family and among neighbors and friends. They make a different sound when they teach their children what to say when they point to the sun the moon, to apples and onions, but the sun the moon apples and onions, are the same realities of which all of them speak.
There are questions and mysteries in their everyday human experiences. Why are some people kind generous patient and loving and others are greedy self-centered dishonest and unhappy? What happens when someone dies, and why does it have to be that all have to die? Truth sheds light on mysteries and gives answers to all questions. In our analogy ,then, let the highest peak of the highest mountain be truth. Truth is one, and unites those who have found it, but also those who are sincerely seeking it. As we climb toward the truth in our understanding and get closer and closer to the whole truth, the peak of the mountain, we get closer and closer to one another. In finding the whole truth we would be made one in it.
If our quest were to climb the highest mountain all the way to its highest peak, to stop at a lower peak and think that was the top, we might be happy there thinking we had reached the top, but our happiness would not be based upon the whole truth. If our search were for happiness rather than climbing to the top we have a different picture. The important question would be are you happy, rather than are you at the top
A similar situation in regard to religion would be to identify and regard the most important question religion should address is "Are you saved?" rather than "What has God revealed?" , or if you are a Christian, What did Jesus teach?' (which includes salvation for all people!). So the real problem is not so much that people are, in God's mercy, finding peace in various religious bodies, but the fact we are divided on what is the truth, and don't even see or be disturbed that we can be united in less important truths such as truth about medicine, mathematics, and even the arbitrary truth about the correct spelling of words as proclaimed in our dictionaries and not the truth about God. ( Jn. 3: 111; 5: 43,44). We accept the testimony of man and not the testimony of God. And until we become aware of this it is not likely we will ever change and come to the single truth about us and all of creation in the one true God.
I am convinced the lack of unity among all who profess belief in God, and in a special way the lack of unity among all who profess to be Christians, is a far greater evil than the terrorism, real and possible we all face at this moment of history. lf we were one in God, the God Who IS LOVE
peace would follow.
Years ago I had a printer that could produce copies in black and white but not in color. I used that as an example to help me understand how the solution to our world-wide and personal problems could be found only in God's love. We cannot produce this no more than someone other than yourself could produce your love. That is because is your love. You would have to offer it to another and that person would have to receive it to make it his or her own. The copy machine had to receive color though it could produce copies in black and white. We can be good men and women naturally without faith, but we cannot be children of God without the supernatural gift of new birth through faith and Baptism. We may be high on the mountain but only at the top when we have accepted in faith the gift of new birth that makes of us a new creation as members of the Church, the Body of Christ, THE TRUTH. as He claimed to be.
The answer to it all begins to come in prayer, that we as individuals and all who believe in God throughout the world might come to a true knowledge and a generous love of the single God of all creation, so that God's love shared with us will make us one in God and bring peace to the world.
(Jn< 17: 20 - 26).
to the questions the group has as its concern. The group we are cosidering in this blog are special.
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