The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite contemplation of the action of the Spirit in our life that deepens our experience of the Presence of God.
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| Light in the darkness |
The reading from the Book of Acts declares the Spirit present in the arrest of Stephen.
* [6:8–8:1] The summary (Acts 6:7) on the progress of the Jerusalem community, illustrated by the conversion of the priests, is followed by a lengthy narrative regarding Stephen. Stephen’s defense is not a response to the charges made against him but takes the form of a discourse that reviews the fortunes of God’s word to Israel and leads to a prophetic declaration: a plea for the hearing of that word as announced by Christ and now possessed by the Christian community. The charges that Stephen depreciated the importance of the temple and the Mosaic law and elevated Jesus to a stature above Moses (Acts 6:13–14) were in fact true. Before the Sanhedrin, no defense against them was possible. With Stephen, who thus perceived the fuller implications of the teachings of Jesus, the differences between Judaism and Christianity began to appear. Luke’s account of Stephen’s martyrdom and its aftermath shows how the major impetus behind the Christian movement passed from Jerusalem, where the temple and law prevailed, to Antioch in Syria, where these influences were less pressing.1
The psalmist has a special need for the guidance of God’s teaching.
* [119:19] A sojourner in the land: like someone without the legal protection of a native inhabitant, the psalmist has a special need for the guidance of God’s teaching.2
In the Gospel of John, Jesus urges the crowd to seek the Bread from Heaven at the beginning of The Bread of Life Discourse.
* [6:22–71] Discourse on the bread of life; replacement of the manna. Jn 6:22–34 serve as an introduction, Jn 6:35–59 constitute the discourse proper, Jn 6:60–71 portray the reaction of the disciples and Peter’s confession.3
Barbara Dilly was impressed that they didn’t ask him for still more miracles. Instead, they asked of him, “what can we do to accomplish the works of God?”... Based on all they had seen and heard from Jesus, by asking this question, she is convinced that they believed he was sent by God... We can learn something from them.
If we can do nothing but maintain long-distance contact with cheerfulness and hope, we can brighten someone’s day. But when we can come together again, I pray we will be more intentional than ever to make a significant difference in the ways we care for others. Just going back to the way things were is not good enough. We can accomplish more than that.4
Don Schwager quotes “God is our landlord,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
"Our wish, you see, is to attain to eternal life. We wish to reach the place where nobody dies, but if possible we do not want to get there via death. We would like to be whisked away there while we are still alive and see our bodies changed, while we are alive, into that spiritual form into which they are to be changed when we rise again. Who wouldn't like that? Isn't it what everybody wants? But while that is what you want, you are told, Quit. Remember what you have sung in the psalm: 'A lodger am I on earth'” If you are a lodger, you are staying in someone else's house; if you are staying in someone else's house, you quit when the landlord bids you. And the landlord is bound to tell you to quit sooner or later, and he has not guaranteed you a long stay. After all, he did not sign a contract with you. Seeing that you are lodging with him for nothing, you quit when he tells you to. And this, too, has to be put up with, and for this, too, patience is very necessary." (excerpt from Sermon 359A,8)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Acts 6:8-15 comments that today’s first reading presents us with someone who had trained for the ultimate spiritual challenge: the ability to remain joyful and peaceful in every hard situation. The fact that even his opponents saw the light of heaven in St. Stephen’s face is a testament to how committed he was to living in the Spirit.
Training to be a disciple of Christ may not always be easy, but it certainly is worth the effort.
“Lord, make me more like Stephen. Help me to run the good race.”6
Friar Jude Winkler explains the attitude of the Hellenistic Jews toward the Temple was different than that in Palestine. The sign of feeding the 5000, points to a greater reality in the Gospel of John. Friar Jude reminds us that the allusions to Psalm 23 in the sign point to Jesus desire to satisfy the deepest hunger of our heart.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that many things can bring us to the “threshold” of our ordinary ways of thinking and behaving, but even good rituals are merely “stand-ins” until Reality itself, often in the form of great love or great suffering, steps in and changes us forever. Paula D’Arcy reflects on great suffering.
Now it was simply my time—my turn to know the darkness and discover whether or not I was brave enough to accept the human journey and find a way through. . . .
I slowly began to see that within the cells of every living thing is the same essence—the presence of spirit. The heart of our journey is to awaken to this spirit within. . . .
Hardly anything turns out the way you expected it to, and you’re frequently ready to write life off as too paradoxical and too difficult to endure. Then some indescribable light fights its way through the impenetrable dark—an unpredictable, unimportant, runaway moment that lights up everything you’ve been unable to see until then. That light removes all the shoulds and oughts, all the illusions about fairness. You enter liminal space . . . In that space you take your first script, the one that weighs five hundred pounds, the script that was cutting into your heart all along, bleeding you to death but you didn’t realize the wound or its seriousness—and you simply let it go.7
In our openness to the work of the Spirit lies our ability to discover “what can we do to accomplish the works of God?”
References
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