What a wonderful thing it is to see people freely living and acting in harmony. Everybody needs to belong to a group, whether it be a family, a club, a team, a church or a nation. The human person cannot attain fulfilment apart from others. We need one another for we benefit from others in so many essential ways. Where would we be without parents to raise us up during the vulnerable years of childhood? Where would we be without the skills of teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, plumbers, architects, farmers and a whole host of others who meet our needs every day? How could we get along without them?

The important thing is to belong to one another in the right way.

Scripture has a lot to say about Unity. Jesus prayed that His followers be united the way He and the Father are one. St. Paul told the early Christians to be “completely united” and not to let differences be the cause of dissension among them (Cor. 1:10). What a lesson this is for the liberals and the conservatives; the right wingers and the left wingers in our society today!

We can be united by a common purpose, without being clones of one another. Physically, God did not create us to look alike. One of the greatest miracles in life is how we are all the same: one nose, two ears, two eyes, two legs, two arms, two hands, etc., and yet, we are all different.

We differ, also, in the degree of our relationship with one another. As in a family, all the children belong to the same parents and are brothers and sisters among themselves, yet their relationship to one another and to their parents is different; so it is in society. We all belong to the human family, yet we are different.

We do not have to hide our individuality either but should feel free to express it, always in consideration of others who are different from ourselves. We don’t have to try to make others like ourselves or make ourselves like others. This is one of the great problems today. Most people, it would seem, are not themselves; they are carbon copies of other people in their form of dress, ideas, prejudices and lifestyle. If you should be conformed to anybody’s will, it should be the will of your creator, not the will of others.

As human beings, we are not self-sufficient. We must live to serve one another, and we must accept others as capable of meeting our needs. The prudent person is one who works for the common good and who knows how to help others and how to be helped in turn.

During his inaugural address on January 20, President Biden quoted St. Augustine’s words from the City of God, book xix, on the Common Good, and he listed a range of initiatives the country must unite together on for the benefit of all. The human person cannot attain his fulfilment apart from the common good. The common good has reference to what’s beneficial for the entire community. It may be defined as “the sum total of the conditions of social living whereby people can reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily” ( Document of the Second Vatican Council : The Church in the Modern World. ). To achieve this common good, ( the clarion cry, “e pluribus unum,” of every authentic American ), St. Augustine advocates ” In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.” We can achieve this kind of unity together by cooperating in what we have in common without sacrificing our private beliefs and practices.

One of the great dangers today is rampant or disinterested individuality: treating others as mere objects, like “things” we can exploit. The way to combat this is never to treat others as objects or means to an end. An important moral principle is that the end must be contained in the means. That is, all the steps or means you take towards an end must be undeniably good and just for you cannot attain a good end by foul means. You can only attain peace, for example, by peaceful, not violent means.

It takes everyone working together to bring about unity and harmony in our land. People complement one another just like one piece of a puzzle complements the whole. We can be joined in harmony and love for one another, in spite of differences, while retaining our own individuality and beliefs.

This is what it means to be part of the diverse family of mankind.

—Fr. Hugh Duffy