A Divided Kingdom Cannot Stand
by Fr. David M. Knight
July 9, 2024
Saint Augustine Zhao Rong, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs
Lectionary 384
Hos 8:4-7, 11-13/Mt 9:32-38
Hosea 8:4-13: The key to God’s reproach is that Israel is not acting in union with God. They made kings, but not by my authority; established princes, but without my approval. With their silver and gold they made idols for themselves, to their own destruction.
In one sense, we can only act in union with God. Stop: be conscious of your existence. “Feel” the life in your body, the activity of your mind. Where do you get the power to “live and move and have your being”? Our being is pure nothingness that God is “breathing” into existence to be and act as a human nature. If we relish the gift, we should respect the intention of the giver.
God wants us to be; otherwise he would not be giving us existence right now. He wants us to use our human powers; otherwise he would not be giving us existence as humans. And we know he is doing more: he is giving us divine life by uniting us to himself in what he does as God: he shows he wants to do with us, in us and through us actions proper to the divine Nature of Father, Son and Spirit. He wants us to act as divine.
Since our existence, our life, our power to act both humanly and divinely all come from God, we should seek above all to be united with him as we use them: united as persons, freely and consciously acting in union with his mind and will and heart. We need to be one with the Father, Son and Spirit as they are one with themselves: three Persons interacting in distinct ways, but perfectly one in all they are and do. This was Jesus’ prayer for us:
Holy Father, protect them... so that they may be one, as we are one.... I ask... that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.... that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
This is spousal love on a level of mystery that “invites endless exploration.”
Matthew 9:32-38: The Pharisees accuse Jesus of casting out demons by the power of the devil. He will answer them later: “If Satan is divided against himself; how will his kingdom stand?”
But here, by calling for disciples to act in union with his heart, he shows that his own Kingdom is not divided. “Moved with pity” for the crowds, he calls others to unite their hearts with his and “ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Ministry is to pray and act in union with Jesus, who is in union with the Father and Spirit.
Initiative: Be aware of union with Christ in all you do.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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