Celebrate and work for unity

This week we celebrate the Independence of this great nation. The Fourth of July holiday is one, like many other ones, that has lots of traditions. From parades, fireworks, cookouts, swimming, family time, and many others, we even here have started a tradition to come out on the east lawn of the church to watch the fireworks. One of the traditions that I think that we need to continue to do and to build on is to pray, pray for our families, for our friends, our Church, and especially for our nation.
Currently, I personally have been avoiding watching the news on television because I get so disappointed with the level of division that we have in our nation, right or left, conservative or progressive. I see politicians on both side of the aisle name calling and blaming the other side for the problems that we have. I also see this within our Church, God is calling us to follow him and the devil is using his tools to fight against that. The reality is that it is up to all of us to begin to work together for the greater good of all of us.
One of the things I think that the pandemic brought out is a greater division in us. We are social beings by nature, and one of the things that all of us desire is a sense of belonging, whether we are introverted or extroverted, we want to belong to something. God wants us to belong to him and him to us, but God also wants that to be a free choice that we make. God will not force us to be with him, even though it might be easier for us, he has given us that freedom to follow or not, it really is our choice. We choose him by the two great commandments to love God above everything and then love our neighbor as ourselves. We cannot love those who we despise, but we can still love those that we disagree with. One of the greatest tools of the devil is division because pitting us against each other does not allow for peace, but strife and struggle.

When we are focused on the differences that we have, we fail to look at the ways that we are alike and then we fail to look toward the only true one who can truly help us and that is God. He made us in his likeness and image, so in this way we are all alike, we are all children of the living God who loves us so much that he sent his Son into the world to free us from sin and death, if we are willing to let them go. Keep praying for healing in our Church, our Nation, and our own lives and remember that this holiday is a remembrance that we can freely come together to be a people of unity.

 God bless,
Fr. Ken