Meeting 4 - “Love is the bond of unity”

Tags: Love, Unity, Relationships, Text work, Sharing questions, Prayer meeting

Goal of the meeting

This is the last group meeting, which is usually a place for participants’ testimony about the retreat coming to an end. However, we want to fully use this time to show that no matter how different we are, we are one in Christ and receiving Him in the Eucharist we truly become brothers and sisters, redeemed by His Blood through love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

Meeting goals:

• sharing experiences from recent events

• showing unity in difficult relationships

• divine filiation as a common factor for all

• Love as the bond of unity

Experiencing unity

• Which moment of the retreat was most important to me and why?

• How did I experience yesterday’s Vigil Mass of Pentecost?

• What stuck in my memory the most from the conference I just heard?

Enlivened by Love

During today’s conference, we could hear that unity is a challenge, among other things due to our diversity.

Let’s read:

Here there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.

—Col 3:11-15

• How often do I stick labels to others, pigeonhole them?

• With which of the listed qualities (compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience) do I have a problem today?

• Which qualities do I need most to build unity?

• What does my gratitude look like? What disturbs the peace of my heart the most?

Prayer - Echo of the Word

Saint Paul tells us that love is the bond of perfection. It is the most important gift we should always ask for, especially when we seek unity. Without love, every gift intended to serve building unity “is nothing”. This is perfectly illustrated by the Hymn to Love, with which we want to pray together now:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels,

but do not have love,

I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers,

and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,

and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,

but do not have love,

I am nothing.

If I give away all my possessions,

and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,

but do not have love,

I gain nothing.

Love is patient;

love is kind;

love is not envious or boastful or arrogant

or rude.

It does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing,

but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never ends.

But as for prophecies, they will come to an end;

as for tongues, they will cease;

as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

For we know only in part,

and we prophesy only in part;

but when the complete comes,

the partial will come to an end.

When I was a child,

I spoke like a child,

I thought like a child,

I reasoned like a child;

when I became an adult,

I put an end to childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly,

but then we will see face to face.

Now I know only in part;

then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;

and the greatest of these is love.

—1 Cor 13:1-13

Blood ties

Let’s read:

Saint Paul testifies that we form one Body with Christ whenever we receive His holy Body. He speaks of this mystery of godliness: “In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus”.

[…]

But this is also obvious that through participation we are united with the Holy Spirit. We have left behind life according to the flesh and have become obedient to the laws of the Spirit. Is it not clear to everyone that we, after leaving our life in some way and the Holy Spirit uniting with us, have been transformed in a heavenly way and our nature has been transformed in some way? We are therefore no longer just people, but children of God and heavenly people, for we have become participants in the Divine nature. So we are all one in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are one, I repeat, participating in the Divine nature, conformed to Christ in love and the community of His holy Body and receiving one Holy Spirit.

—St. Cyril of Alexandria

Saint Cyril of Alexandria in his commentary makes us aware - or rather reminds us - of our divine filiation and our union through the bonds of the Blood of Christ, whom we receive in Holy Communion:

• How do I experience the fact that I am a child of God?

• What does the fact that we were all redeemed by Jesus change in my way of looking at others?

Participation in Holy Communion unites us with Christ, whereby we are all united with each other in Him. It is worth approaching the Lord’s table as often as possible, so that through this deep union with Christ, we can unite with the parish community (e.g. today at Mass).

United!

• What do I leave the retreat with? What do I change from today in my experience of unity and how will I build it?

• In what way can I introduce unity in my environment?

It is good to remember at the end to thank the group for the time spent together, for this joint discovery of the path to full unity in the Church.