In his conclusion of chapter 8, Rausch maintains that “all the churches are being challenged today to strive for reconciliation and full communion” (166).  In order for this to happen there must be a spirit of oneness, a spirit of love that transcends our differences.  In striving for openness to freedom of expression in liturgies, openness to relaxing the “rules” and embracing the diversity of heritage, traditions, and social customs of our evolving global community, we become more like Jesus. 

Chapter V of Lumen Gentium states, “The followers of Christ, called by God not for what they had done but by his design and grace, and justified in the Lord Jesus, have been made sons and daughters of God…They must therefore hold on to and perfect in their lives that holiness which they have received from God.”

I have observed in my ministry that many people struggle in viewing themselves as children of God. The image of their human parents often superimposes over their image of God.  Many of our wounds, prejudices, and obstacles to becoming more holy, stem from our family of origin or our life experiences, giving us a distorted image of who God really is.  We can view God as someone ready to punish us for our weaknesses or infidelities, or someone writing down our failures in order to reckon with us at the moment of our death.  Most of us have moved beyond this kind of thought but not as much as we give ourselves credit for.  In some ways, though it may be unconsciously, we still think of God as petty or lacking compassion, hyper-serious, disappointed in us, and disappointed in the world.  My conservative friends see God as hung up on orthodoxy, dogma or morality; my liberal friends see God as hung up on social justice.  In neither circle of friends does God seem compassionate, understanding or joyous to the “other.”  If we are to truly assimilate the God that was incarnate in Jesus, then we must believe in the God of love.  Lumen Gentium affirms, “God has poured out his love in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (see Rom 5:5); therefore the first and most necessary gift is charity, by which we love God above all things and our neighbor because of him” (V-42).