The height of discipleship

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 3rd week in Easter time

April 28, 2020: Acts 7:51-8:1a; John 6:30-35

We are given the picture of the martyrdom of Stephen... the height of discipleship, giving one's life up for the sake of Truth. The real courage that is exhibited in the passage of today, where Stephen dares to say what he saw and heard, or what he was given to see and hear. 

The Gospel presents the same courage manifested by Jesus, challenging the Scribes and the Pharisees and offering himself as the bread of life; infact, Stephen is presented to us as an ideal disciple who did what Jesus did, who lived the way Jesus lived and who died the exact way Jesus died. The cue is the prayer: "Into your hands I commend my spirit". While Jesus makes that prayer to the Father, Stephen makes it to Jesus: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit". This, incidentally, is the first prayer that we see, addressed to Jesus, in history. 

The height of discipleship consists in the courage to imitate the master in every little detail...in our life, our prayer, our convictions and our priorities. Today surrounded by a health crisis, what is our mental disposition? 

A disposition of fright would right away disqualify us from being convinced disciples. A disposition of rash and ruthless denial of reality and insensitive breach of the consensus for common good, again is a disqualifier for a disciple of Christ. Instead, sensitivity to the suffering, faith to see the presence of God even amidst the darkness that surrounds, the readiness to state the facts and stand for truth, the compassion to look not only at our need and our boredom but at the needs and anxieties of the hapless lot, and finally the trust in entrusting ourselves and the entire world to the Will of God - these would be true signs and the height of our discipleship today.

How close are we in our lifestyle to Jesus, our Lord and Master?