Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste.

I once sat with a family as they gathered in the bedroom around their deceased father. He was not a good man; he was not a bad man. He was a successful man by this world’s economic standards. He had a heart of gold; he never met a stranger; he bankrolled every party. But his failures were appearing in the wake of his forceful personality. He had always called the shots. There was no right way or wrong way with him; there was only his way. He told everyone what to do and what to think. 

And then he  was gone and full blown rivalries suddenly appeared. Even as the family gathered at his bedside there was palpable fear. Sides were taken and harsh words, spoken.

This giant of a man had ruled his kingdom well, by all accounts; but the splits in his own heart drove the family apart.

An individual whose heart is divided creates dissension and rancor among others. Wherever he goes he creates friends and enemies and division between them. I might think because I whisper my sins in the confessional they are secret. But they are known and they hurt. They shout from the rooftops. 

Divorce tears people apart. It is never a private matter. The children, recruited by their warring parents to act as arbiters, agents, attorneys and judges, must finally choose one parent or the other. They cannot have both. Once friendly in-laws fear their counterparts on the other side of the family; meeting in public they nod. If they speak, it’s with sadness. Even churches may discover new causes of division in the rancorous atmosphere of divorce.

In today’s gospel Jesus warns his contemporaries in the Jewish community, and he warns us. an individual whose heart is divided, a family without a common purpose, a married couple who cannot worship the same God, a nation that despises its own principles -- will collapse. 

In this gospel Jesus once again offers himself as our unity. Listen to him: 

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”