Sunday, April 14, 2024

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

(Acts 3.13-15.17-19; I John 2:1-5; Luke 24:35-48)

Perhaps you have noticed how the Old Testament is not used in masses during the Easter season. Now the Church highlights readings from the Acts of the Apostles or the Apocalypse where in the masses of the rest of the year readings from the Pentateuch, the prophets, or other writings of the Old Testament appear. This year we read from Acts six Sundays in a row!

Today's reading focuses on the preaching of the apostles. Peter and John have just cured a paralytic. The people are amazed by the miracle when Peter speaks up to explain how it was done. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, he speaks up boldly. He says it was done in the name of Jesus whom his hearers handed over to Pilate for execution. He then moderates his tone by giving a pretext. He says that the Jews did not know what they were doing when they sought Jesus’ death.

However, the Jews still must repent. Peter says, in effect, that it was their pride that prevented them from recognizing what they were doing. Their exaggerated trust in their leaders prevented them from seeing the truth that Jesus taught and the goodness he showed. Peter might have added that they did not resist the lust for violence, which remains in the human heart as a primitive impulse. His call to conversion includes the dozens of ways in which humans fail to do God’s will: disrespect for the Almighty, greed, lust, lying, etc.

We need to hear Peter's sermon as directed to us as much as to the Jews. Although we have the Holy Spirit to help us, sometimes we fail. The attractions of fortune and fame that we see in notorious criminals like Pablo Escobar or scandalous Hollywood stars drive us to betray the virtues that our mothers and fathers taught us. Instead of obeying the voice of God in our consciences, we ignore it. We think we are limited only by civil law and, even then, by the police's ability to catch us doing something criminal.

Peter's call is no different from that of Jesus Christ. Neither threatens us with the fires of hell. Rather, they both want us to know the infinite mercy of God. He is not going to scold us for having sinned but rather gift us for having finally discerned the light of truth. It is true that those who insist that they do not care about God will be left in the darkness. There they will experience the remorse of having chosen the fantasy of self-aggrandizement over the love of God.  But the real shame is what will be missed.

Saint Augustine lived for himself until one day he looked into a Bible he found. By chance he opened the book to where Paul writes: "...no more excesses in eating and drinking, no more lust and debauchery, no more quarreling or envying. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not worry about satisfying the desires of the flesh." Later Augustine had to admit how he barely achieved life's greatest treasure. He wrote in his Confessions: "Late did I love you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late did I love you! And you were inside me and I was outside ...You called me and cried out, and broke my deafness; you shone and shone, and cured my blindness; you exhaled your perfume, and I inhaled it, and now I long for you; I tasted you, and now I feel hunger and thirst from you; you touched me, and I longed for the peace that comes from you.

Perhaps we are not as great sinners as Saint Augustine in his youth. But it is true that most of us think so much of ourselves that we forget the goodness of God. We have to repent of this pride in order to know his love.

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