What do Martin Luther King, Jr., a Coca-cola commercial and the Church have in common?

It’s probably the best Coca-cola commercial of all time. In the 1970s a group of people in an array of ethnic clothes gathered on a hilltop to sing a jingle about a soda. They wanted to buy the world a Coke, to teach everyone to sing in perfect harmony, to discover the Real thing.

A couple of years ago, my daughter had a dream. She was born nearly a decade after this commercial hit the airwaves, but her dream reminded me of it. She said there were people of every nation, clothed in every kind of traditional dress imaginable, and they were all making their way to the top of a mountain. The excitement was palpable, like a current that ran through all of them, drawing them to the top. Some were running as fast as they could, gathering their saris and kimonos and kaftans high.

The overriding feelings of the dream were peace and joy and desire, she said. But it wasn’t a desire for any earthly thing. With single-minded purpose, they clamored to the top of the mountain for the fulfillment of all desire.

I smiled and told my daughter that it sounded like the Catholic Mass. Everyone is seeking God. Everyone is there for the source and summit of all things, Our Eucharistic Lord Jesus Christ.

I could vividly imagine her dream. There is only one worship experience that embraces and transcends culture. There is only one faith that is fully united and fully diverse. There is only one religion that has called every people throughout time to come.

It is the Church Our Lord founded. The 2000 year-old Catholic Church.

Commercials and artistic representations like the Coca-cola commercial simply reveal our heart’s desire, a desire that cannot be sated by a cold beverage or a great jingle. The heart’s greatest longing is for Jesus Christ.

So, gather up your saris, your kimonos, your kaftans and make your way to the fulfillment of all desire.

Isaiah 66:18-21

The Lord says this: I am coming to gather the nations of every language. They shall come to witness my glory. I will give them a sign and send some of their survivors to the nations: to Tarshish, Put, Lud, Moshech, Rosh, Tubal, and Javan, to the distant islands that have never heard of me or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory to the nations. As an offering to the Lord they will bring all your brothers, on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules, on dromedaries, from all the nations to my holy mountain in Jerusalem, says the Lord, like Israelites bringing oblations in clean vessels to the Temple of the Lord. And of some of them I will make priests and Levites, says the Lord.