Tuesday, April 20, 2021

 Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 7:51-8:1a; John 6:30-35)

Stephen hardly seems “filled with the Holy Spirit” as he castigates the Jews in today’s first reading. However, it should be remembered that the altercation has grown bitter.  A previous passage reads that Stephen’s adversaries paid people to testify against him with insidious lies.  St. Luke, the author of Acts, wants to show how Stephen imitates Jesus when the latter uttered similar disparagements against the Pharisees.

Stephen also imitates Jesus as he is being stoned to death.  Like Jesus, he asks the Lord Jesus to pardon his executioners and entrusts his spirit to the same Lord.  Something even more significant is in Luke’s mind here.  The evangelist has written that Jesus’ death eventually brought the Holy Spirit upon his disciples to complete his mission in the world.  With Stephen’s execution, Luke presents Saul (i.e., Paul of Tarsus).  This Pharisee will become the principal instrument of Jesus’ message to the non-Jewish world.

Luke shows his readers (that is, us) that the mission is inexorable.  Whether we join it or not, it will go on because it is propelled by the Holy Spirit.  Nevertheless, it behooves us to join because with it we begin our course to eternal life.