The term pivot point is used in basketball: the player grounds one foot in place and then spins, looking around for an opening to throw the ball. But you have to remain grounded, because if you move, it’s a foul, and once you start traveling, it’s all over.
The pivot point of our faith is the Jesus Christ came to manifest the love of God for all people. That is the one place we need to keep our foot grounded, because if we don’t, we lose track of what we’re about. We lose sight of who we are and who we’re with.
It’s easy to get people off track if they don’t maintain their pivot point, if they don’t maintain their grounding in one thing. Our faith is in the power of the love of God to transform our world. It’s in the fact that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection were effective at bringing salvation and making it available to all people.
When we believe this, when we stay focused in this, we cannot in fact then land in our divisions.
We are a Church divided, divided because we all think we know who’s right, and yet the one “right” gets lost in it all. Jesus Christ is our focus. Jesus Christ is what unites us. He is the source of our communion.
We live in a country divided, because we have forgotten what we have in common, and part of that is because we’ve had to move into a correctness that isn’t allowed to say, United Under God. There was a time when the United States was united under God, and therefore Jews and Muslims and Christians could actually all get along, if they chose to, because they had one grounding.
But even if the rest of the world, even if the rest of the Church, doesn’t stay grounded, we need to. For that is when our Eucharist and our worship are effective in our lives and make them something in this world that will help transform it. When we stay focused in that love of Christ, that love of God revealed in him, when that becomes our pivot point, everything doesn’t necessarily make sense, but it all comes into proper focus.
What truly does unite us, if we allow it to do so? His infinite love for each of us. This is when we are free to do his will: when we are set free by his love for us.
--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, May 21, 2026
Homily, May 21, 2026
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