Friday, May 23, 2025

 

Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

(Acts 15:22-31; John 15:12-17)

All the attention being given to the new pope raises a question of the first reading.  Why didn’t Peter take upon himself the decision to allow gentiles into the Church without circumcision?  In other words, why was the letter to the Church at Antioch written in the name of “the Apostles and presbyters” of Jerusalem?  After all, Jesús did name Peter the rock upon which he would build his Church.

The reason is not that difficult to discern.  In the beginning, the Church was small and egalitarian.  The apostles held places of prominence, but the whole community took part in deliberations.  As the Church grew, clarity and effectiveness demanded that the successor of Peter make operational decisions for the whole Church.  This did not take place, however, for about one hundred years. 

Pope Francis tried to return some of the mutual decision-making to the whole Church through synodality.  Pope Leo XIV seems poised to continue this process.  However, we should not think of synodality as a name for democracy.  It promises to be more a sounding board where the voices of Catholics from different backgrounds may be heard.  Ideally, it will give the pope of the universal Church and bishops of local churches a better sense of what the Holy Spirit is doing among the faithful.

Friday, May 20, 2022

Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

(Acts 15:22-31; John 15:12-17)

Today’s first reading reports the most consequential decision of the Church in history.  It tells how Church leadership universally agreed to dispense non-Jews from practicing the Jewish law.  Effectively, it turned the Church from a sect of Judaism to a separate religion.  It is worthwhile to understand how the decision came about.

Paul, Barnabas, and Silas travel to an assembly of church leadership in Jerusalem.  There they defend their practice of baptizing non-Jews who believe in Jesus.  Peter from personal experience note that non-Jews can receive the Holy Spirit.  James also recognizes the Spirit’s testimony in non-Jewish believers.  He calls the judgment of the assembly in the first place a decision of the Holy Spirit.  When all the elders of the Jerusalem Church agree, the practice is adopted.  Soon baptizing non-Jews becomes dominant in Christian evangelization.

We can be thankful for the decision of the Jerusalem assembly.  Few of us would probably be Christians if our ancestors had to endure circumcision before being baptized.  Perhaps more importantly, however, we need to recognize how Jews are our elder brothers and sisters in faith.  Of course, Jesus lived and died as a Jew.  Also, Jewish Scriptures enable us to understand Jesus Christ.  Christianity is not a sect of Judaism, but it could not be a religion at all if it were not for the Jews.