Homily for Tuesday
5th Week of Easter
May 17, 2022
Acts 14: 19-28
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, New Rochelle
You probably recognized the 1st reading
this morning as the same reading we heard on Sunday, with 2 verses as prolog,
narrating the outbreak of persecution in Lystra and Paul’s being stoned and
left for dead.
Reading that, I’m struck by the contrast of
the next verse: “they proclaimed the
good news to that city” (14:21), namely Derbe, whither they fled from Lystra. Being stoned to death, or nearly so, doesn’t
sound like good news or a reason to continue proclaiming good news.
For Paul and Barnabas, the Good News they proclaim outweighs the dangers. “Undergoing many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (14:22) is part of following Christ toward eternal life, as he endured passion and death on the way to resurrection and to “restoring us to eternal life” thereby (Collect). Following Christ requires perseverance, and our 2 apostles encourage their disciples to that in spite of persecutions (14:22), encouragement that they reinforce with the beginnings of church structure: the appointment of presbyters or elders (14:23).
Our brothers and sisters in Hong Kong, which
our SDB Cardinal Charles Bo on Saturday called “a police state”—and as a
Burmese bishop he knows something about police states—and our brothers and
sisters in Nigeria, the Middle East, and South Asia have that constancy in
faith and hope for which the Collect prays today.
Your lives, brothers, have already been
lives of perseverance in the faith—in our Catholic faith and in the charism of
Edmund Rice. “May we never doubt the
promises of which we have learned” from the Good News. Even at this stage of our lives, perseverance
is necessary because every day requires us to say “yes” again to Jesus.
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