Watch Vassula’s speech on Unity

Vassula’s speech on the teachings on Unity contained in the Messages of TLIG, at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage in Turkey May 25th 2007

The Church is one and has always been one, but the people of the Church are those that with their quarrels, prejudices, their pride and mainly their lack of love for one another managed to divide themselves, and we all know it!

Christ, offended, said in a message: ”My Kingdom on earth is My Church and the Eucharist is the Life of My Church, this Church I Myself have given you. I had left you with one Church but hardly had I left, just barely had I turned back to go to the Father, than you reduced My House to a desolation! You leveled it to the ground! And My flock is straying left and right. For how long am I to drink the Cup of your division? Cup of affliction and devastation! (November 14, 1991)

This lament coming from Christ should be heeded by us and the search for reconciliation and unity must pervade the whole life of the Church and become our priority so as to reach this goal that is Christ’s goal. It is our due to God, it is our obligation to God, and it is our responsibility for safeguarding the credibility of the Church.

However, no matter how much the Church struggles to attain this goal, so long as the Feast of Easter is not unified and not celebrated together our division will remain and there will be no progress because Christ has been asking them for years now to unify the dates of Easter promising us that if this is done He will do the rest to unify us all and bring us to a complete unity.

Jesus said: ”Remain in my love. If you keep My Commandments you will remain in My love” (Jn 15, 9-10) If not, the Lord says: ”Anyone who does not remain in Me is thrown away like a branch – and withers, these branches are collected and thrown on the fire and are burnt.” (Jn 15, 6).

Obviously many have not taken seriously these words of Christ. How false and corrupt could one be! Despite the Gospels calling us to remain united, despite the promptings of the Spirit, our division remains. Therefore, ”True Life in God” must not allow anymore this gangrene that kills the function of the Body to overpower us, but we must fight it with bonds of love. We should all feel responsible for having allowed this disease to devastate the Mystical Body of Christ even if this division did not come from us but came from our ancestors, swallowing the unity of the Church.

The Church too should give way in humility and listen to the cries of all of us, the laity, that have the right to express ourselves as well, who are desperately seeking unity and intercommunion… Without the laity, there is no Church… We, lay people, we all want unity eagerly.

Since we know that God abhors division because it is wrong and a scandal, why is it that some of the people of the Church, knowingly, keep offending Christ by insisting in keeping this division alive?

To live Unity with love and humility is not a question of sentimentality, nor is it trading the faith and the Truth, but it is to declare from the Scriptures the Truth, and put alive every word of the Gospel. We should not remain dead to the Word of God.

The Christians that remain divided do not live in the Truth, no matter how credible and righteous they want to appear in the world’s eyes, and no matter how many Hail Marys and devotions they would be doing, their lack of love and their lack of humility are a give away sign so obvious that we all notice it.

It’s been now centuries that the Christians are divided, some, admitting their sin and some, admitting mournfully that they have no power to share the Holy Eucharist together. So what’s holding the Church back? What holds them back is the fact that they cannot agree, nor reconcile, nor forgive because, again, love and humility are missing. So long as their hearts are not kindled with love for Christ and with the fire of the Holy Spirit, they will remain inactive and inert just as the dry bones of Ezekiel’s vision.

Love is the root and the foundation of unity. If the Church is not yet living in full communion it is because everything that is expressed or discussed and explained is done without love, it’s sterile. This division is directed against Christ. All who call themselves Christians and abide divided have broken the Commandment of Jesus Christ who said: ”Love one another.” Let’s face it, the Christians who do not love and have only lived in self glory will never reconcile because they have not yet grown fully into Christ.

Remember when Christ in the last Supper said the blessing and raised the bread telling His disciples: ”take it and eat it, this is My Body.” Then He took a cup and when He had given thanks He handed it to them saying, ”Drink from this,  all of you, for this is My Blood, the Blood of the Covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins…”

This is Christ’s Commandment, and so we must, all of us, obey it. How can we say we live in Christ if we have not made peace or reconciled with one another? Has it ever occurred to the people of the Church that they are living daily the sin of their division? Therefore, if this is known to us, the shepherds’ and all of us have to choose.

There are two choices here. The first choice belongs to God and comes from God and that is: to live in love, peace, humility, reconciliation and unity. The second choice belongs to Satan and comes from him and that is: hatred, war, pride, lack of forgiveness, ego and division. It’s not so difficult to choose. But then, when we choose and take part on God’s side and not act on it we will be held accountable and we will all pay for every arrogant attitude, every pride, every prejudice, for our grudge, for the lack of charity for our coldness and for every word we uttered against one another, for our ego, and so on, because we would be breaking Christ’s Commandments. It’s as simple as that.

In Judgment Day we cannot tell God that He has not shown in our times His Mercy and that He has not shared His designs, nor could we pretend we have not heard Him in His Calling nor that we have not understood Him. I know, as well as you know, that the Signs of the Times are calling us all for Unity. How is it that some of the authorities of the Church are unable to read the Signs of the Times? We cannot dismiss those signs coming from the Holy Spirit, and yet some do. This is because they have lost the sense of the supernatural and believe only in naturalism and that is a grave sin.

These sterile actions go against what Christ asked the Father in His Prayer when He said: ”May they be one in Us, as You are in Me and I am in You, so that the world may believe it was you who sent Me.” (Jn 17,21) And even more when we do nothing about it to bring unity in the Church but remain silent, like sepulchers in a vast graveyard.

If anyone tells you that you are doing the wrong thing when you are living a spiritual unity or having intercommunion like today and in these past days, you should ask these people:

”Why do you put God to the test by imposing on the shepherds to remain divided? If you are questioning me about an act of reconciliation and love, you must know that I am only following the Commandment of Christ. So what’s best for you to do, follow the Commandment of Jesus Christ or disobey it? Is it a sin to love and reconcile with one another? No, obviously it is not; sin is rather the transgression and the rejection of the Commandment of our Lord and the calling of Unity. Your sin of division has destroyed part of the Church and made a desolation out of it, and you know it. How can then the Body of Christ be recognizable in us if we remain divided? How could the world believe that it was the Father who sent Christ? I, for my part, have chosen not to be like those tombs who are as inanimate matter that is dispersed and torn asunder by their ego and by their spirit of pride, prejudices and self-interests, but I will listen to our Lord’s Command and I will remain in Him for I have read with the help of the Holy Spirit the Signs of the Times which call us for Unity, sharing around one Altar… I want to be the perfect Icon of Unity, graciously drawing everyone to live, ”A True life in God,” and abide in the Holy Trinity.”

And you will see, my friends when these words will be uttered, the reaction of those who hold back unity and who hold the keys to the Kingdom of God, neither going in themselves nor allowing others to enter; it will be identical to those of the then rulers, elders and scribes, Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, Jonathan, Alexander and all the members of the high-priestly families who had persecuted Peter and John who said to each other: ”to stop the whole thing spreading any further among the people, let us threaten them against ever speaking to anyone in the name of Christ again.” Acts 4, 17.

Today our response should also be the same one as Peter’s and John’s who said: ”You must judge whether in God’s eyes it is right to listen to you and not God. We cannot promise to stop proclaiming what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19) And where in another situation Peter with his apostles said to the Sanhedrin, the high priest: ”Obedience to God comes before the obedience to men.” (Acts 5, 29)

Ask them also: ”who of us two is sinning? The one who has reconciled with his brothers sharing one Cup and one Bread, and following Christ’s Commandments, or the one who has not reconciled and keeps this division alive, spitting venom on his brother and thus siding up with the Divider? Is Christ a God of division or of Unity? I, for my part, believe I am on the right side, because I have chosen reconciliation, this one that the Gospel is preaching to us. I am not convinced that I am sinning or disobeying or harming the Mystical Body of Christ, or declaring harmful morals to the faithful; on the contrary, I am reconciled with my brothers in humility and love, living the spiritual unity our Lord has been pleading us for centuries.” This is what you should tell them.

The Lord said in a message: ”Raise your voice in My House and ask My shepherds: ”Is there anyone willing to work with vigor and love to rebuild this tottering House? Is there anyone in there who is willing to defend this House? Is there anyone who understands now what I am saying? Is there anyone in the Lord’s House who is disposed to expand the Kingdom of God?” (October 20, 1998)

Let us ask our Lord to send us His Holy Spirit who is the Source of Christian Unity to enlighten those who still raise objections in the way to unity.

We should ask the Holy Spirit also to strengthen us and give us the Spirit of Fortitude to be able to continue eagerly and with avidity to do God’s Will, and that we should never get discouraged or wear out if any vile act is done upon us by those who do not listen to the Holy Spirit’s calling: to be one. Christ says in a message: ”I could utter only one word in their assemblies and with that single word unite My Church. But the glory of Heaven will be given to me by Poverty, Wretchedness and by those they call contemptible.” (October 13, 1991)

So here I take with all the True Life in God contemplative readers the position of Poverty, Wretchedness that is looked upon the learned and the wise as contemptible, and am asking the officials of the Church to stop their quarrels between themselves for the sake of Christ’s Love and their insincerity and indifference towards unity and permit the Holy Spirit to guide them, by listen to the groaning of the Spirit that asks, commands us to unite around one Altar, sharing one Cup and one Bread, and together proclaiming in one voice that there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God who is Father of all, over all, through all and within all.

Download and Print this speech by selecting one of the following languages (RTF format):