(The readings for Sunday Mass today may be found here.)
There has been a lot of noise about the Church being the Body of Christ, about it being united in purpose, direction, love between its members, and its love for God. At the same time it has been rocked by heresy (disagreements over doctrine), schism (disagreements over affiliation and direction), and scandal (disagreements over ethics). Those definitions are clinical, and the actuality is actually darker, grimmer, and much, much worse.
Our Lord prayed very hard that His Church, His Assembly would be united in the same love that the Father and the Son had for each other. He prayed for all who would believe the Apostles and their teaching. He prayed for that unity in love so that the world would know that Jesus came from God. Yet we in our disunity have obscured the very thing we were commissioned to reveal.
It is in the Revelation that He gave St. John the Theologian (another title of the Apostle attributed one Gospel, three Epistles, and one hotly contested Apocalypse) that Jesus blesses those who have washed their robes. He then refers to those who take the Water of Life as a gift, offered to all who are thirsty. These are references to Baptism and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which was part of last week's readings as well.
The fact of the matter is that we who profess the name of Christ are hearing the invitation but not really comprehending it. The Spirit is freely offering the Spirit's own self in this invitation, and the Church echoes it. The Spirit drives the Grace behind the Sacrament of Baptism and further fuels the life of the Redeemed in the other Sacraments and in daily activity. The Spirit wishes to rush in and through us to make our Natures one with Jesus' Human Nature, and in so doing share the indwelling that the Spirit enjoys with the Son and the Father with us. This indwelling, this perichoresis, this dance of love between the Persons of the Trinity and all the countless persons of Humanity is an eternal invitation. If only we open ourselves up and let go of the burdens and corruptions of our old Natures. The Spirit desires our transformation in the here and now so that when our old bodies and Natures wear out, the new Nature can step in and at the Resurrection of all the new uncorruptible bodies can knit to our persons and our new Nature, but it requires our love, not just for God, but for those who bear God's image, that is, everyone.
The Church, for all its issues says, "Come," because the eternal promise is way beyond what the Church can show us today.
The Spirit also says, "Come," because the love of God is boundless and because Jesus made it possible to shed our old Natures and allegiances and enmity to God.
Come, take the Water of Life.