One in Christ, One in Love
- CARYLL HOUSELANDER
There is one characteristic of this generation that is wholly good:
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The Holy Family with a Bird by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Our growing realisation of human solidarity, of our need for one another, the real oneness of all human creatures. Perhaps this realisation is the seed that has been sown in secret by all the nameless martyrs of this century. True, it is often wrongly manifested and misunderstood, as indeed it must be while there are millions who do not know God, but like a seed it is striving and pushing through darkness to light, and in the light we hope.
Today only those who are less than human want to live to themselves. The average man, however dimly he yet sees his way, wants to be part of the whole of humanity, one of the human family. He wants his life to be part of the world’s resurrection. Perhaps in this stirring of his heart, there is the beginning of the answer to our Lord’s prayer for the world, that they may all be one.
But our consciousness of our oneness with all people will only become the vital communion of love that it should be when each one of us bravely accepts his personal responsibility for the suffering of the world. We are as much one in this as we are in hope. In practice, every sin we commit adds to the sum of the world’s sorrow, every act of love mitigates it.
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Acknowledgement
Caryll Houselander. "One in Christ, One in Love," from Lift up Your Hearts. H.J. Taylor, Arena Lettres (1978).
Printed in the August 2023 edition of Magnificat. Reprinted under fair use.
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The Author
Caryll Houselander (1901-1954) was a British Roman Catholic laywoman; a mystic, writer, artist, visionary and healer. Her first book, This War is the Passion, written during World War II, launched her prolific writing career. She is best known for: A Rocking Horse Catholic, The Reed of God, The Way of the Cross, This War is the Passion, The Risen Christ, The Letters Of Caryll Houselander: Her Spiritual Legacy, and Wood of the Cradle, Wood of the Cross: The Little Way of the Infant Jesus.
