WORD 2day - Thursday, Last week in the Eastertide
May 16, 2024 - Acts 22: 30,23:6-11; John 17: 20-26
Courage! You have borne witness for me in Jerusalem, now you must do the same in Rome - these are the key words today from the Liturgy. That was the message given to St. Paul and that is the message given to each of us who wishes to become, or be called as, the people of God, as the people of the Spirit. This is what Jesus prays for his apostles too, that they be one and thus become witnesses. The greatest of witness that a Christian or a Christian community can give is its unity; the worst of scandal it can give is it state of being divided!
We are called to Witness to the Good News - the Good News is God, the Good News is the Son of God, the Good News is the presence of the Spirit... the Good News is that we are people, children of God. Each of us is chosen, called and commissioned to become people of God, to grow into children of God...thus witnessing and calling out to the rest of the humanity, to receive that same call and respond to it. How can we, if we do no live up to that call and identity?
The Spirit gives us the courage, the strength and the audacity to bear witness. That is why we see today, St. Paul is being prepared to go to Rome. It was not his plan, nor did he ever dream of it. But there was a plan brewing in the design of God, and we know what great effect it has created in the history of the people of God. But when God's design unfolded itself, be it Paul or Peter or other apostles, they were all there, carry it on, moving along and living it up in their every day life. That is witness, testimony. That is the grace that the Spirit will bring us: to be witnessing communities.