Thursday, April 28, 2016

April 28 - Homily for Today

+ It is the human way to proceed slowly and cautiously before any big changes take place! This was also true of the “human element” of the newly inaugurated Divine Mystical Body of Christ, the Church. Though infused with the Holy Spirit, the still weakened and somewhat darkened intellectual part of the minds of many of the early Christians, even Apostles and presbyters (priests) were a bit slow in “piecing it all together” – especially as regards the transition from the Old Testament to the New. The question in point today is the total acceptance of Gentiles as true and genuine coheirs with the Jews to the merits of Jesus’ death and resurrection! So many in the early months and years were less than enthusiastic about simply letting the Gentiles in “scott-free”!

It is Peter today who speaks to the gathering of Church members and he tells them that quite obviously the same Holy Spirit that rushed upon them at Pentecost, has also fell upon these Gentiles in their midst: it is because of the visible fruits thereof that came the proof: they proclaimed Jesus as Lord, called on God as their Father – and yearned to be part of the table fellowship with the rest of the Christian community. An additional question was whether or not they had to be converted first to Judaism, before being converted again to Christianity. Peter, James and many others of the Apostles agreed that this was not necessary: what was necessary was that they “turned to” “converted” to the Lord ONCE AND FOR ALL TIME!

The gospel passage tells us that all who belong to the one Christian community – whether coming in from Judaism, Gentilism or straight away from the world: have one thing in common: they have a strong, deep and overriding desire to “keep the commandments of Jesus, which are all about LOVE” – and Jesus and his Father will both come and reside and remain in such persons – being the source of great joy both now and forever! Amen!


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