We just have a few days left in our Easter season, as we will celebrate the solemnity of Pentecost this weekend and the end of the Easter season. As we continue to hear about the missionary efforts of the Early Church in our readings from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear about Paul’s difficulties in today’s reading, as Paul is ordered to stand before the chief priests and the Sanhedrin to give testimony before them. Rather than trying to help Paul and encourage him, the Jewish authorities are plotting to kill him and destroy him, a reminder of what Jesus went through during his journey to the cross. Paul is cunning and intelligent as he traps the Sadducees and Pharisees, getting them in an argument that he knows that will keep them preoccupied, since these two groups do not agree in the belief in the resurrection.
Today’s liturgical color is red. Red is the color of the Holy Spirit, but it is the color of martyrs as well. In fact, the saint we commemorate today has the word “martyr” attached to his name: Justin Martyr. In the era of great persecutions in the Early Church, to be considered to be a saint in our faith one had to be a martyr, to have died for the faith. Justin was born into a pagan family in the year 100. Although he was initially attracted to Plato and the other Greek philosophers, these philosophies led him to Christ and to his conversion to the Way of Jesus. Justin is primarily remembered for his Christian apologetics, for the way he defended the faith against other religions and philosophies and heresies. In a letter Justin Martyr wrote in 155, we have the first description of a liturgy in the Early Church. Justin's description is very similar to the flow and elements that we have in mass today. In particular, what strikes me about his description of mass is his description of the Eucharist: “This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation.” Justin Martyr was beheaded in Rome in 165 as a martyr for the faith. Today, we give thanks for Paul, Justin Martyr, and all those Early Church Fathers and Mothers who boldly lived out their faith and passed down their faith to us. May we have the same courage and tenacity in the way in which we live out the faith as well.
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