The test of time - Endurance!

WORD 2day: Friday, 2nd week in Easter time 

April 16, 2021: Acts 5: 34-42; John 6: 1-15

One term that unites the two readings today is the term, "test." Jesus himself is tested with such a big number to feed. He tests his disciples with a task given them. And in the first reading we have Gamaliel setting up a test of time for the believers! All of these are tests that bring out the quality of Endurance. 

Jesus could have very well said, let the people go and find their own means of food, after all they came on their own; they were not obliged to come! Won't we do that, when we plan some activities for others or in ministry? But that would have been on Jesus' part, an escapism! When Jesus asked the disciples where they could buy bread for the crowds, they could have easily said it wasn't possible! Or later in the Acts of the Apostles, when they were threatened and jailed, the disciples could have, at the first instance said, why should we break our head over the salvation of these people! That would have been shirking the responsibility given to them. As a community the first Christians could have remained calm, quiet and comfortable within their small circle loving each other and fending for each other. But that was not to be the case!

If Jesus were to have taken an escapist mode of reaction to the situation, or the disciples the shirking mode, or the first believers a comfort seeking compromise mode... we would have nothing of what we believe and belong to today. The revelation of the limitless love of God in the person of Jesus, the Christian community that experienced that love and handed it down to the generations, the prophetic presence of the Church, as the sacrament of God's salvific love - these are grand signs of a simple decision that Jesus, the disciples and the community took - to endure the test!

Endurance is the time tested virtue that enables us to stand the test of time. The Martyrs of old, great saints in history, the holy ones of our times, all of them stand proofs to one fact: Endurance helps faith mature and endurance is a mark of a mature faith! Our faith is true, strong and alive, only in as much as it endures, especially the test of time!

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