So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.-Eph 2:19-20
Friends, God is good, all the time.
When it was time in 1989 for modern history's most infamous wall, the Berlin Wall, called the "wall of shame" by the West Germans, to come down, it fell heavily at the collective hands and efforts of both East and West Germans. Its collapse was consequential to Germany's reunification, bringing both the East and West together as Germans. Similar walls of equal magnitude erected in parts of the world to divide people: the Sumerians' Amorite Wall, the Long Walls of Athens, the Great Wall of Gorgan, the Hadrian's Wall, the Great Wall of China, and the Walls of Constantinople, are no longer standing.
St. Paul's message to the Ephesians, which comes to us today, reveals how Jesus Christ set the stage for history to witness the collapse of walls by the merits of Christ's peace offering through his death to break down the dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles.
According to Paul, because of the singular act of Christ, the gentiles, who once lived in the world without hope, and without God, now possess hope and God. And, more than that, they have become "fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone"( Eph 2: 19-20).
In imitation of Christ, Christians and the world should strive to eliminate all forms of walls, whether they are real or invisible. For some people, the wall that separates their hearts and minds and blocks compassion, forgiveness, and love from directing their decisions and conducts must be broken; for others, it may be the wall separating them from the knowledge of and obedience to God, or the walls of relationship denying them of family/friends- to-personal enrichment and satisfaction.
We meet Jesus today telling his disciples to be vigilant in all things all the time. All of us must stay vigilant in our thoughts, speech, actions, faith-practices, work, relationships, and in our Christian life generally as we await our great master and Lord to return and bring us the rewards for our obedience to him.
Prayer blessing:Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.