5/12/12- Saturday of 5th week of Easter- Acts 16:1-10

It is so good being back here at St Richard to celebrate the Saturday morning mass.  I am here this morning to give a retreat to the Society of St Vincent DePaul, and we are glad to see so many of the members of that society at mass this morning as they being their day of retreat together.  I really enjoy hearing the readings from the Acts of the Apostles in the daily masses during the Easter season, as we hear how the early Church grew, struggled, and evangelized during those years that immediately followed Christ’s death and resurrection.  The disciples of Jesus had to figure out what the resurrected Christ really meant to them in the daily lives, just as all of us have to figure out what it really means to lives out the reality of the risen Christ in our daily lives in the modern world as well.  We can all be very edified at the many times the Holy Spirit is mentioned in this reading from Acts.  Paul is led by the Holy Spirit to the places where he brings God’s word to the people, just as the Holy Spirit infused his very being with the joy and enthusiasm of bringing God’s word to the Gentiles of the ancient world.

I had been affiliated with the group that founded the conference of St Vincent DePaul here at St Richard parish when I served as the associate pastor here.  And I know that the Holy Spirit led all of these members to found this apostolate.  The members journey together as brothers and sisters in Christ, they grow in their faith and in the spirituality of St Vincent DePaul and its founding members in Paris almost two centuries ago, to Frederic Ozanam and a group of students at the University of Paris who formed their faith and responded to the reality around them.  Today, the Society of St Vincent DePaul is a beacon of faith and light in our world in how out of the faith of its members, they reach out to the poor and to the reality of the world in which they live out of their love for God.

As Paul, Timothy, and those members of the early Church were led by the Holy Spirit in their daily lives and in their efforts to evangelize, may we have that same love and dedication to the Holy Spirit, to where the Spirit is calling us to live out our faith in our daily lives.