Monday of
the Fourth Week of Easter
(Acts 11:1-18;
John 10:1-10)
“Growing pains”
occasionally affect children in their sleep.
They cause some to wake up in the night with discomfort in their
legs. Since researchers have not found
an underlying cause for these pains, they are named for growth, a phenomenon
associated with children. In the first
reading we find the early Church afflicted with its “growing pains.”
One of the
great issues for the Church in its first decades is whether to accept non-Jews
into its fold. Non-Jews are not gentiles
who become Jews through circumcision and eating kosher but gentiles who refuse
to accept Jewish customs. Since Jesus
was a Jew, could gentiles follow him without living as he did? This is the critical question. In the reading from Acts today Peter defers
to none other than the Holy Spirit for an answer. He explains to the Jerusalem inquisition that
he baptized Cornelius’ household upon seeing that they manifested the gifts of
the Spirit.
Today the
Church has other issues to deal with. We
can easily name a few – homosexual couples, the care of the sick in “permanent
vegetative states,” the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate, etc. Too often differences on these questions
create fragmentation and suspicion. Like
Peter we should turn to the Holy Spirit for guidance. This means that
we recognize that what is most authentically Christian is the primacy of
charity. On some issues change may be
impossible for reason of consistency with tradition and coherency with
established teaching. Even here,
however, there is an imperative to treat the people who are involved with
respect.