Our reading from Acts today talks about how members of the Early Church were scattered to other countries due to the persecutions they faced in Israel. Locations in modern-day Lebanon, Syria, and Cyprus are mentioned in the reading as places where they fled. They Christians from Israel preached to fellow Jews when they arrived at these places, but Christians who were used to living in the more diverse settlements in northern Africa were more open to preaching to the Gentiles. Acts states that many of these Gentiles converted to the Christian faith. I recently saw a post from a Christian radio station from Minnesota on the internet that states that 72% of adults in the US live within 20 miles from where they grew up. Two of my siblings live very close to the places where I grew up in Chicago and in southern California. I wonder how open we are to those of other walks of life and other cultures, of bringing the Gospel message to them and sharing our faith with them. It is hard sometimes for us to go beyond our comfort zone to be open to reaching out to others who are so very different from us. With our Catholic tradition of missionaries sent all over the world, we in the Church have done a good job of this, although in recent years we have come under attack for this very thing. And perhaps the people who criticize us are ignorant of our actual work and our motives. How is God calling us to share our faith and to reach out from our comfort zone? Perhaps that is a good question to ask.
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