Reflection for the 5^th Tuesday of Easter

Acts 14:19-28 —John 14:27-31a

    Todays’ reading from the Acts of the Apostles is a continuation from Monday’s reading. Paul and Barnabas were in Iconium spreading the word of God, and both the Gentiles and the Jews along with the religious leaders were planning at attack and stone them. They both fled to the Lycaonian cites of Lystra and Derbe and the surrounding countryside continuing to proclaim the Good News.

    In today’s reading in Acts these same Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrived in the Lycaonian cities and with their false teachings won over the crowds. This crowd and the Jewish leaders stone Paul, drag him out of the city and leave him for dead.

   The disciples gathered around Paul, he got up and entered the city. The following day he and Barnabas left for Derbe where they continued to proclaim the Good News of Jesus and the number of disciples grew. 

    Paul never gives up to matter the cost, even if it meant death, his mission, vocation, was to spread and tell anyone who would listen of all the good works of Jesus and what his relationship with Jesus was. His efforts, his passion, his drive strengthened the spirit of himself and of all the disciples that had converted and followed him.  We read in this passage that Paul urged and encouraged them to persevere in the faith saying; “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God”

    No truer words can be spoken and resonate with us to this very day. With our shelter in place directive, businesses, schools, places of worship all closed we feel the torment of this altered state of life. But Paul’s words of preserving in faith, and enduring hardships, difficult, as they may seem, should also lift our spirits. The darkness that we are experiencing is slowly fading, becoming moment by moment a little brighter. We will be able to gather again in small groups, socially and spiritually at some point in time. We just have to trust, and persevere to the truths that we believe in and in medical science that the church embraces. 

    A little spiritual food for thought as we continue to slowly emerge out of today’s     darkness and into the light that is Christ.

 Stay safe, pray, exercise, and have a blessed week.

Deacon Jerry

    Today we celebrate the Feast Day of Saints Nereus and Achilleus. Not being familiar with these two Saints I have included a very brief piece from Loyola Press on them. They both persevered in their faith and suffered the gravest hardship, subsequently entering into eternal life and communion with God the Father. 

Saints Nereus and Achilleus, Martyrs

Roman soldiers made good martyrs

Little is known about Saints Nereus and Achilleus, but we know is engraved in stone. Damasus, one of the first popes and later a saint himself, wrote the epitaph for the tombstone of Saints Nereus and Achilleus. In this epitaph he proclaimed that it was love for Christ and a desire to witness to their new faith that inspired Nereus and Achilleus to “throw away their shields, their armor, and their bloody spears.”

It seems that both men were Roman soldiers who obeyed orders in the persecution of Christians until they themselves were converted to Christianity. Because Christians were not allowed to bear arms, they resigned from the emperor’s army and escaped from Rome. Eventually Nereus and Achilleus were captured and put to death for their beliefs. They were among the first martyrs to be venerated as saints.

Reflection

As in the case of many early martyrs, the Church clings to its memories though the events are clouded in the mists of history. It is a heartening thing for all Christians to know that they have a noble heritage. Our brothers and sisters in Christ have stood in the same world in which we live—militaristic, materialistic, cruel and cynical—yet transfigured from within by the presence of the Living One. The heroes and heroines who have gone before us marked by the sign of faith and the wounds of Christ enliven our own courage.

Monday May 11, 2020

Acts 14:5-18

John 14:21-26

Happy Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter! I pray everyone and their loved ones and friends are safe and well. I’ll tell you, I had a slight sore throat and some heaviness in my chest on Thursday evening and Friday for most of the day and it kinda scared me. I thought, is this the beginning of me getting sick, and I began thinking about having to get tested (and how to go about doing that), calling my doctor, going to the hospital…it was quite unnerving. I was relieved, when Friday afternoon I began feeling better. And I felt foolish for, in my own mind, over-reacting to the situation. I prayed about it, asking God for calm and peace and the fortitude to accept and handle whatever comes my way. And I think it’s a good thing to pray about that normally, asking for the ability to accept whatever situation we are in and know, I mean really know and believe, that the Lord is with us and will carry us through that situation. Not worrying about, “what am I” going to do about this, but “what are we” (ourself and the Lord) going to do to get through the situation.

 I want to focus on the reading from Acts today and the power of the Holy Spirit which filled Paul and Barnabas. As they preached and healed throughout their travels they came upon places where they were revered and placed they were revilied, as we see in today’s passage and in tomorrow’s (feel free to read ahead). And it struck me how similar to Jesus’ travels this was and how similar our own faith travels are. When we speak to people about our faith, our words can be met with many different reactions. Today, we see the people of Lystra treat Paul and Barnabas as the Greek Gods Zeus and Hermes, which angered the two Apostles. As we see so often in the Acts of the Apostles, these followers of Jesus don’t want adulation, in fact they considered it more of an honor to be persecuted in the name of God. So what do they do here, they speak in order to take the focus off thmselves and place it where it belongs to God and Jesus, the living God. 

My friends, in this time in our world where spreading the word of God is so important and helping those who don’t know Jesus or who have fallen away from Him, to trust that the love of God is there for their taking as relief of their troubles, we cannot become discouraged. For just as Paul and Barnabas were filled with the Holy Spirit, so are we, that exact same Holy Spirit who gave them strength and wisdom and the words to speak is in us as well. We can speak the Good News, we can heal the affilicted with our words and our actions. We too must have the faith that Paul and Barnabas did in Jesus and in the Holy Spirit, that we have the gifts to bring others to Christ. Reach out to those whom you know could use a shot of Jesus’ love and peace. Give them a call, drop them a note, send them a Holy Card or a old photo of the two of you together. We can all be missionaries right now, even though we can’t go anywhere. Use the tools we do have for communication to “reach out and touch someone.” How relevant this old marketing phrase is now, now more than ever. Stationary missionaries or I think today the term is “intentional disciples”. We can evangelize, we can heal, the words and actions of love, mercy and kindness can spread the Good News in very powerful ways.

So let’s make it a point this week to “reach out and touch someone” with the love of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Deacon Kurt