Saturday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/021112.cfm

The woods in winter

This was a sin on the part of the house of Jeroboam
for which it was to be cut off and destroyed from the earth.

The Church struggles valiantly to maintain the unity for which Jesus prayed during the Last Supper:

“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me....

This has been a major concern of the Catholic Church long before the Second Vatican Council and especially of the four popes since the Second Vatican Council. Even as they invite the Orthodox churches of the East to deeper dialogue and communion, they are disheartened by schisms like that of Archbishop Lefebvre. 
Bishops too struggle to maintain unity within their dioceses and among the priests. Because a priest has the authority to consecrate bread and wine some lead their own parishioners into schism. This is especially painful for the Church as we know the children and grandchildren of those parishioners, discovering the priest whom they have always revered is a charlatan, may be scandalized and lose faith in the sacraments, the Mass and the Church. 
These rifts also cause distress well beyond the Catholic Church as people expect us to maintain our unity. The thought that a group calls itself catholic but is not in union with Rome is oxymoronic; it makes no sense at all. 


These contemporary tragedies are prefigured in the story of Jeroboam, the son of Solomon. The division began, as we heard on Thursday when...

... Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to strange gods,
and his heart was not entirely with the LORD, his God,
as the heart of his father David had been.

His sons Rehoboam and Jeroboam struggled for mastery of his kingdom and rent it in two, with Rehoboam controlling the smaller nation of Judah with its capital Jerusalem; and Jeroboam ruling Israel from its capital Shechem, and later, Samaria. 


The Hebrew prophets denounced Jeroboam and Israel and threw their allegiance to the Temple and the holy city Jerusalem; but the two nations would never be reunited. 


The Deuteronomic historians who preserved these stories and installed them in our Bible -- centuries after that schism -- also roundly condemned the northern kingdom. It made no sense that God should be the Lord of two separate nations, with different shrines, opposing priests and contrary sacrifices. They saw the punishing hand of God in the Assyrian invasion which effectively wiped out Israel. The Assyrians marched the people of that nation into exile (the "ten lost tribes of Israel") and imported others people, who were the Samaritans of Jesus' day. 


Judah survived that tragedy until it too was overcome by the Babylonians. However, the exiles of Jerusalem survive to this day. Unlike the Israelites, they cannot be lost. They kept the faith, preserved their traditions, compiled the Scriptures and gave them to the world. 


It would be comforting to think that Rome and its popes always get things right. They don't, but their passion for Church Unity is right. It is born of ancient sorrows and Jesus' prayer. And we know that Jesus' prayer, because he is the Only Begotten Son of God, cannot be frustrated forever. It must finally erase the curse of Rehoboam and reunite all the people of God. 

And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.  (John 17: 22-23)