Homily
for Tuesday
2d Week
of Easter
April 9,
2024
Acts
4: 32-37
Christian
Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.
Students
from the
form a large
heart full of joy and happiness. (ANS)
“The community of believers was of one
heart and mind” (Acts 4: 32).
Luke twice gives us a picture of an
idealized Church (cf. 2:42-47). Probably
all of us recognize that it’s an ideal.
In fact, in the next chapter comes the story of less-than-ideal Ananias
and Sapphira (5:1-11), which our lectionary passes over. Those 2, as well as a much later falling-out
between Paul and Barnabas (15:36-39), demonstrate well enuf that the internal
life of the early Church was no more ideal than it is in our day.
In today’s Scripture reflection from
America Media, blogger-columnist Simcha Fisher takes on the discrepancy between
the ideal and reality, specifically referencing Paul’s letters to the
Corinthians. (I’ve been reading her for
a long time; she’s good.) She asks: “What was really happening? Was the early
church actually as holy and pure and single-minded as Luke describes it, or was
it a pack of weasels and backsliders and hypocrites, as Paul often seems to
believe? Did it start out good and then go bad immediately? Or were the
glorious early accounts written by people so naïve and blinded by optimism that
they didn’t see what people were really like? Neither explanation is especially
gratifying.”
Still, Luke’s ideal is something to aim
at. We religious propose that same ideal
for our communities. Insofar as we
approximate the ideal, we provide a living and life-giving example to the
entire Church: this is what it means to
be disciples of Jesus, to be united in heart and mind with him. And we do our best to sing, or at least hum,
in complete harmony with Jesus and with our brothers.
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