Can the Church succumb to pressure?

Ways to belong to the flock: Possess Joy and the Holy Spirit

Saturday, 4th week in Eastertide
28th April, 2018: Acts 13: 44-52; Jn 14:7-14

The disciples were filled with joy and holy spirit, says the first reading today. It becomes hard to connect that this is the ending note of a passage speaking about the rejection and insult of the apostles by their own fellow Jews. Elsewhere too we would read that they returned happy that they were able to suffer for the sake of the name of  Jesus (cf. Acts 5:41). 

However it would make clear sense once we read and understand what Jesus tells us in the Gospel today: whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and will do greater ones than these. The apostles seem to have inherited it from their Master to consider themselves blessed for having to suffer for righteousness sake, to thirst for justice. Joy, for Jesus meant being in the Spirit and being in the Spirit meant standing by the Lord, with truth and dexterity!

It used to be my normal experience to be laughed at, when I speak to groups about standing for truth and facing the consequences. Be it groups of youngsters or groups of consecrated people, they smile when I say, 'stick to the truth and stand for the right wherever you are.' They would smile and conclude saying, 'then that would be the end of us"...meaning that they would lose any future if they did it! It would be like, they telling me: that sounds good when said, but living it is not feasible. I appreciate the honesty of these people, but constantly question myself: when will we be matured enough to shake the dust off our feet and walk, and keep walking!