Homily
for Tuesday
6th
Week of Easter
May
12, 2026
Acts
16: 22-34
Christian
Bros., St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.
https://www.ourtruelegacy.com/resources/studies/
book-of-acts/acts-16-that-was-no-coincidence
“What must
I do to be saved?” (Acts 16: 30).
Commentators,
some of them at least, hold that the jailer thought Paul and Silas were
sorcerers of some kind. They’d been
attacked, beaten, and jailed because they’d exorcised a slave girl, and now an
earthquake has released them from their chains.
So the jailer is afraid of their power and asks what he has to do to be
safe from it.
Regardless
of what induced him to ask how to be safe or be saved, Paul points him right to
the Gospel. Jesus saves us. Paul and Silas explain that, succinctly
summarized by Luke: “They spoke the word
of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house” (16:32).
The jailer
and his household believe, are baptized, and respond with an act of charity—a
meal for the 2 apostles—and with rejoicing (16:33-34).
If we
believe that the Lord Jesus is our Savior, we respond in the same way—with
charity and with joy. “A sad saint is a
sorry saint” has been attributed to several saints, especially to St. Francis
de Sales. If Jesus lives in our hearts,[1]
how can we be sad? We must be
joyful if we believe Jesus forgives our sins and makes us friends of God. We ought to radiate happiness, and of course
charity as well: kindness, patience, and
forgiveness, those down-to-earth virtues of daily living, easy to speak of,
harder to practice.
That’s why
Jesus provides us with an Advocate to help us (John 16:7). May he help us love one another joyfully.
[1]
An allusion to the invocation the Brothers make at the end of every Mass: “Live Jesus in our hearts—forever.”
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