Blood is thicker than water, the saying goes. Blood feuds, ethnic cleansing — world history is full of violence that comes of defending these sacred bonds of blood. Consider how revolutionary the Gospel of Jesus Christ was and is. It teaches that we are one because we all have the same blood — not by nature but by the shedding of the blood of Christ. “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are,” proclaims 1 John 3:1. And in Ephesians, we read that Jews and non-Jews, famously hostile, were brought near and made one by that blood. We are family, the well-loved song says, but family harmony is not spiritually infused into us, as we all know. Our universal family blood unity has been revealed to us, but then we need to choose it, live it. That takes great love over time on our part. We need to choose to see the precious blood of Jesus in those we don’t like or agree with, those we need to forgive, those we fear, even those we believe are evil. Only with the power of the divine blood can we do it. May we call on that power in the new year just ahead so that, ever so slightly, our world may become less violent.
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia