Working through our ideas to relationship

The Texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today continue to relate how the followers of Jesus experienced the consequences of His death, Resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Peter presents a teaching to those who have assembled as a result of the gift of healing given the beggar through the action of the Holy Spirit. He connects Jesus to them as the Suffering Servant of the Scriptures who would  die for the people and be raised by the Father. He acknowledges they were ignorant of Jesus mission and invites them to turn now to be reunited with the plan of God through life with Christ. The Evangelist Luke, author of the Acts of the Apostles, was learned in the ideas of Stoicism. These ideas place perfection as a Divine attribute. The Plan of God is linked in Acts to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the ancient patriarchs. In the text from the Gospel of Luke,Friar Jude Winkler observes that the three encounters in this Gospel with Jesus, after His Resurrection are very much the usual way the plan works out in peoples lives as they come to know Jesus. Like the Apostles in the Upper Room, we often hear of Jesus from others. As we journey with the questions about faith, our Emmaus road, we encounter Jesus sacramentally and liturgically and in the resonance of our indwelling Spirit with the Divine. Ultimately, we experience the relationship of the Apostles gathered in the upper room that our fear and terror over our state in life is overcome by the peace of a personal relationship within the Body of Christ which place us in His Mission, like Peter attempting to relate to the world how we experience Him. Father Larry Gillick SJ suggests that every relationship needs mystery. Our relationship with Him is rich in that regard.