The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary both inspire hope and give pause to reflect on how some deep desires seem to be as far away as ever. Michael Cherney sets the liturgical scene of this time of year as being between Jesus bodily departure from the earth and the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit this weekend at Pentecost. The description of the action of Paul in heated debate with the Pharisees and the Scribes after cleverly drawing them into verbal and perhaps physical conflict gives a lively and aggressive thrust to the mission deeply lived by Paul to bring the Word of Life to the Gentiles. The plan which Luke describes being revealed to Paul is nothing less than Moving to the centre of the political world, Rome, to replace the Emperor as spiritual leader with Jesus. In some sense this would seem to be the action required of believers, even today, to bring the possibility of Jesus prayer in the Gospel of John that we all be one to fruition. Even as we are searching for a strategy to accomplish this unity, we know that the prayer of Jesus to the Father is being fulfilled in accord with Divine Will and in God's time. Our prayer for faith is that we maintain our openness to prompting by the Spirit and are as prepared as Paul to act to draw all to Jesus.
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