Monday, April 15, 2024

 Monday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 6:8-15; John 6:22-29)

Saints Peter and Paul seem to dominate the Acts of the Apostles.  Yet the story is not primarily about them.  Much less does is it dominated by the work of the apostles as a whole.  Above all, the Acts of the Apostles features the Holy Spirit.  The one whom is to be called the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity is at work throughout the story.  He develops the Christian community and moves its center from Jerusalem.  The Spirit, not Paul or chance, brings the gospel to Rome.  From there it will be dispersed throughout the world. 

Stephen has been chosen for the work of the apostles precisely because he has the Spirit.  Jesus once promised that the Spirit will enable his disciples to defend themselves (Luke 12:12).  In today’s passage the Spirit is seen performing this task.  Stephen’s preaching with the Spirit surpasses the arguments of his interlocutors.  Resenting his mastery, the defeated debaters go to the authorities to silence Stephen.  The Spirit does not spare Stephen martyrdom, but he gives him a unique reputation.  No other person in Scripture is said to have “the face of an angel.”

We have received the same Spirit.  He moves us to speak the truth including that of our own shortcomings.  The Spirit, most of all, enables us to make sacrifices for the benefit of others.  In doing the latter, we too will have - to some extent at least - “the face of an angel.”

Monday, April 16, 2018

Monday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 6:8-15; John 6:22-29)

Saints Peter and Paul seem to dominate the Acts of the Apostles.  Yet the story is not primarily about them.  Much less does is it dominated by the work of the apostles as a whole.  Above all, the Acts of the Apostles features the Holy Spirit.  The one whom is to be called the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity is at work throughout the story.  He develops the Christian community and moves its center from Jerusalem.  The Spirit, not Paul or chance, brings the gospel to Rome.  From there it will be dispersed throughout the world. 

Stephen has been chosen for the work of the apostles precisely because he has the Spirit.  Jesus once promised that the Spirit will enable his disciples to defend themselves (Luke 12:12).  In today’s passage the Spirit is seen performing this task.  Stephen’s preaching with the Spirit surpasses the arguments of his interlocutors.  Resenting his mastery, the defeated debaters go to the authorities to silence Stephen.  The Spirit does not spare Stephen martyrdom, but he gives him an unparalleled countenance.  No other person in Scripture is said to have “the face of an angel.”

We have received the same Spirit.  He moves us to speak the truth to power and to recognize our own falsities.  The Spirit, most of all, enables us to make sacrifices for the benefit of others out of love.  In doing the latter, we too will have - to some extent at least - “the face of an angel.”

Monday, April 20, 2015

Monday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 6:8-15; John 6:22-29)

Stephen is a Greek-speaking Christian.  In the first reading today he debates, no doubt in Greek, Jews from Cyrene, a Greek city in modern Libya, and from Alexandria, the center of Greek wisdom in Egypt.  Not being from Jerusalem, Stephen has little allegiance to the Temple, the great institution that dominated Jewish life there.  He evidently speaks of the place as useless since Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice outside the city walls.  This kind of talk would be grating in the ears of any Jew, and it is especially so with those belonging to the Sanhedrin or ruling body of the city.  They will eventually have Stephen stoned to death.

If Jerusalem and its Temple are of little importance, something similar may be said of Rome and St. Peter’s Basilica.  True worship is made in Jesus Christ, the feast of whose body and blood can be celebrated anywhere.  Certainly Rome has come to signify the Vicar of Christ, but he might reside in another place as happened for most of the fourteenth century.  As magnificent as it is, St. Peter’s is destined for collapse.  It is the Eucharist that has eternal efficacy in reconciling us to God.

Homilette for Monday, April 27, 2009

Monday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 6:8-15; John 6:22-29)

Acts relates that Stephen and six other Hellenist Jews are ordained to bring food to Hellenist widows. However, it never describes them doing so. Rather, whatever else they do, Stephen and another Hellenist Jew, Philip, proclaim the word of God. It is not far-fetched, therefore, to think of their table ministry as involving the Eucharistic table. Perhaps they offered mass in the vernacular to meet the spiritual needs of Greek-speaking Jewish converts in Jerusalem.

Today’s first reading tells of Stephen being brought to the Sanhedrin because of his preaching. It says that false witnesses testify that he spoke of Jesus destroying the temple and changing Mosaic customs but never verifies these accusations. In his long polemic against the Jews that follows the statements, Stephen does say that God “does not dwell in houses made by human hands” – an obvious reference to the temple. Not only does Stephen speak forcefully then; he also represents a new trend within the early Church to move away from temple-centered Jerusalem to Greek-speakers with a universal spirituality.

As in the early Church with Stephen and the Hellenist Jews, the evangelizing Spirit is moving the contemporary Church to new frontiers. The new frontiers, however, are in many cases long-Christian countries that have lost their dynamism. In the United States we witness the energy of immigrants from Mexico and Latin America, from Vietnam and the Philippines, from Africa and Poland packing otherwise half-empty Catholic churches with a welcome vigor. It is tempting to criticize the enthusiasm as simplistic, but a more honest appraisal might recognize it as the vibrant faith of the first believers in Christ.