Daily Reflection for Thursday, April 23, 2020
Peace and Blessings, Friends and Parishioners,
We encourage you to reflect on Thursday’s readings at this link: Click Here
If you prefer to use your own Bible, the readings are:
First Reading: Acts 5:27-33
Responsorial: Psalm 34:2 and 9, 17-20
Gospel: John 3:31-36
Our reflection on Thursday’s readings:
We are witnesses of these things, as is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. Acts 5: 32
Today we hear the story of the Apostles spreading the Good News and coming into conflict with the religious authorities in Jerusalem. These leaders refused to believe that a lowly carpenter was the Christ or that these fishermen and tax collectors could have been blessed with such wisdom and knowledge from the Spirit.
I’ve often thought it would be easier to believe, to have a stronger faith, if I had been able to meet Jesus in person; if I had witnessed his miracles as the Apostles did. Yet even the Apostles, the fathers of our Church who exhibited great faith, also doubted the divinity of Jesus. Whether it was Peter denying Christ the night he was arrested or Thomas who refused to believe in the resurrection until he put his finger into Christ’s wounds, they sometimes lacked faith even though they had walked with Jesus as he taught, died, and rose from the grave. They had been witnesses as they mention in today’s reading, but still occasionally doubted and questioned. If they wavered in their faith, no wonder I have done so at times in my own life. However, they ultimately chose to believe, while the religious authorities of the time, and so many in our own lives, refused to do so.
Ultimately, I think faith comes down to a choice. Do we choose to “accept his testimony” and choose to let the Holy Spirit witness to us? Or, in the words of Jesus in today’s gospel, do we choose to be “one who is of the earth?”
Years ago, in the midst of my own faith crisis, I realized that the ways of God would never completely make sense to me from my earthly perspective. But if I chose to believe that God loved me, if I allowed myself to see the Spirit at work in the world around me, then I would find peace and life.
The message being delivered today is one of witness and faith. How do we believe when so many have doubted and continue to do so? How have we witnessed the Spirit at work? Where do we see Christ resurrected in our world?
In this Easter season, it is our mission to be a witness of these miracles in our own lives. May God bless us with a renewed faith to be His witnesses in this world until we see Him in heaven.
Peace,
Pete Kuester