“Love one another,” Jesus tells his disciples. No, Jesus commands his disciples. This is how everyone will know that they are his disciples. As we gather here today, we ask ourselves if we can be recognized by our love. Do we show the love we have for one another in what we do and say? Do we love one another as much as Jesus loves us? May the God of love bless us in the challenge to love each other.
Introduction to the Liturgy of the Word
The first reading may read like a travelogue of the ancient Gentile world, but in between all the place names we hear the care Paul and Barnabas took in calling disciples and building up the early church. They take to heart Jesus’ command to his disciples in the Gospel: love one another. Paralleling the way the region and the church are being remade through the work of Paul and Barnabas is John’s vision of God creating a new heaven and earth, uniting the two in this new world. Listening to God’s word, let us appreciate how God’s grace makes all things new.
Reflections
• The author of Acts sums up Paul’s initial missionary journey by saying that he “opened the door of faith to the Gentiles” (14:27). First, he and Barnabas did not force it upon the people in the cities they visited, nor did they fight back against people who opposed them, as we heard last week. No, they taught them about Christ and invited them to believe. Secondly, they proclaimed the Good News specifically to the Gentiles, giving them the opportunity to embrace the faith as well as giving the early church the opportunity to expand far outside Judea. This is the model we can follow as well: open the door of faith, inviting those who are unattached and those who are outsiders to join.
• Note that Paul and Barnabas don’t reel people in and then take off. Today we hear them return to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, where they strengthened and encouraged the new disciples. They appointed elders in each community, whom they could correspond with after they left. They prayed and fasted with them. Back in the city of Antioch in Syria (not to be confused with the town of Antioch in Pisidia), they reported their success and no doubt the church there prayed for the church in Pisidia and Pamphylia, as we do now for the Church in other parts of the world.
• Jesus’ commandment to his disciples is a lot more challenging that just the warm fuzzy feeling we get when we think of loving one another. No, Jesus asks that we love one another in the way that he has loved us. This means we have to be willing to give of ourselves, to even lay down our lives for one another. Let John’s vision in Revelation inspire us. “God’s dwelling is with the human race,” he says (Revelation 21:3). God is right here, renewing us, redeeming us, loving us.
Question of the Week
How can I open the door of faith to someone else?
-from Pastoral Patterns
readings of the mass
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Reflections
The Easter Season
DISCOVER MORE The Easter season is fifty days from the Sunday of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ to Pentecost Sunday.
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