“Division Within the Church” - 3rd Sunday OT- A (1.22.23)

“Division Within the Church”

By: Fr. David Schmidt

St. Pope John Paul II Shrine - Washington, D.C.

Mass Readings- https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012223.cfm

In today’s readings we see this imagery of light shining into the darkness. The Responsorial Psalm as we recited was, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” Then in the first reading it says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.” And this was also repeated in the Gospel, showing that the Gospel passage is fulfilling the prophecy of this passage from Isaiah of the light shining on the land and the people who dwell in darkness.

Then, right below those lines showing that the prophecy is being fulfilled, the Gospel says, “From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Jesus is bringing the Kingdom of heaven to earth. The Kingdom of heaven which is the light that overcomes the darkness of the kingdom of evil.

There are many reasons for what causes the great darkness from the kingdom of evil that we see in this world. One of the reasons I want to highlight today of why there is such darkness is because of the great divisions that we see in our world. The obvious place that we see this division in our culture is in politics, but that’s not the area of division that I want to address today. So, you can take a sigh of relief on that lol

The division I want to focus on today that is more aligned with the type of division Paul is talking about in the 2nd reading, is the division within the Church. When Paul speaks of division within the Corinthian church, he speaks of these rivalries that have developed among them.

He says, “I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

I see a tendency in our Church today for people to choose “camps” or “teams.” We say, “I follow this leader.” “I follow that pope or that cardinal or bishop or priest.” Than we associate ourselves with them and almost begin to identify ourselves with them.

However, this is not what Christ desires for us. Even the good and holy cardinals, bishops, and priests would say that they don’t want you following them, or saying you belong to them. St. Paul even says this in the 2nd reading when he even admonishes the people who say they belong to him. He says, “Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

He is making the point that we are not followers of any leaders, nor do we belong to any of them. We are all called to be followers of Jesus Christ. We are called to belong to Jesus and only Jesus. He is the only one we are to identify ourselves with at the core of our heart. This is because it is Christ who died for us on the Cross. It is in the name of Christ whom we have been baptized into.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean that we can’t say, “Oh I like to follow this person’s podcast, or listen to their homilies.” Or “I really like their theological or spiritual writings, so I tend to read more of their works than others.” That’s all perfectly fine. All of the Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, founders of religious orders, saints, etc. are meant to serve as holy men and women that help us on our journey to Christ. Maybe there’s something about their witness that we want to emulate, or their writings touch our hearts in a certain way, which again is great, we just always need to remember that we follow Christ and belong to Him and not any other person or Church leader. Christ is the end. He is our shepherd. He is the light.

Right now, there are many divisions within our Church. Now, when I say division, that’s much different than diversity. Diversity is good. Division is bad. In the Catholic Church, we have so many amazing religious orders and different rites and cultural celebrations of the faith, and these all contribute to the beauty of the Catholic faith. These are all different expressions of the same faith. They are all different expressions of the same truth.

The difference between diversity and the division that we see with so many Christian denominations is that these Christian denominations aren’t just different expressions of Christianity, but there is a real breaking off based on their own interpretation of the truth of Christianity. Much of it is based on following a certain person who has their own beliefs about the faith. The two most famous being Calvinists following John Calvin. Lutherans following Martin Luther. This is similar to the error we see in the 2nd reading. Since the Protestant Reformation the divisions have continued and now there are literally thousands of different Christian denominations. That is not diversity, that is division.

Christ desires unity. It breaks His heart to see so much division within the Church. There is the division that comes with breaking off into different denominations, but there’s also division that occurs amongst ourselves as Catholics. This tendency to take sides and choose camps instead of seeking true unity.

The unity that Christ desires isn’t an acceptance of everyone’s own preference of how to live out the Catholic faith. This is the culture’s definition of unity where everyone can do what they want, and we are called to accept that person’s opinion. The unity that Christ calls us too is to be of the same mind and purpose. We are too be united in truth. The truth of Jesus Christ. Not our own truth, or what we want the truth to be.

It’s OK to say that you don’t agree with what certain people are saying within the Church. It’s OK to point out errors. This is how we come to know and understand and live in the truth. However, what is happening is that we are dealing with these disagreements within the Church in a similar way that we see in our culture and in American politics.

Instead of good and fruitful dialogue, there is hatred, there is an ‘us vs. them’ mentality. There is greater and greater polarization. There is fighting. And bickering. And slandering. And tearing down our brothers and sisters in the faith. I’ve seen this especially on social media sites and different Catholic blogs. The devil is having a field day right now. He wants us to be in division and chaos and fighting amongst ourselves.

This is because when we do this as Christians. When we do this amongst ourselves as Catholics. And this division gets greater and greater within our own hearts and within the heart of the Church, the light of Christ that is meant to shine forth from us into the darkness becomes dimmed. The world looks at us and mocks us because we say we have the truth, but all they see is that we can’t even agree amongst ourselves and there’s so much inward fighting.

Again, it breaks Christ’s heart to see so much division. We are meant to be brothers and sisters in Christ. We are His children. I think about the sorrow a mother and father must feel when their family becomes divided. The sorrow they feel when their children constantly fight amongst each other and break off from the family.

Christ desires to bring the light of His Kingdom into the darkness. He hates division. He hates these rivalries within the Church. He hates the fighting. He hates the Church politics. He hates the polarization within the Church.

Christ desires unity. He desires to see ourselves as brothers and sisters in Christ, as followers of Him, striving together to live the truth of the faith.

Let us pray that we may be united in Christ this day. Let us pray to the Lord for forgiveness for any way that we have contributed to the division that we see within our Church. May we seek to love our brothers and sisters in Christ as we are called too. And may Christ’s light powerfully pour forth through us into the darkness, so that the Kingdom of heaven may reign in this world and in our hearts, so that the darkness may come to be no more.