5/17/2012 – Thursday of the sixth week of Easter - Acts 18:1-18

      Today we continue to hear about Paul and his travels in bringing the good news of Jesus throughout the world.  Today he leaves Athens and ends up in Corinth, where he meets some who reject this Good News and others who welcome Paul with open arms.  We hear about a Jew named Aquila and his wife Priscilla who are originally from Italy and who welcome Paul in their humble home, about Crispus, a synagogue official, who comes to believe and who has his whole family baptized.  Many of the Jews were still choosing whether they would follow the Way of Jesus in their lives or not, and in many of the towns that Paul visited, he often found a receptive audience in the Gentiles.
I was reading a history of Spain, having just been there on pilgrimage, and it was talking about how in the years right before the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, the government in Spain had been very much against the Church.  Spain now seems to be a country that is once again somewhat challenging the role of the Church and the Catholic faith in its modern reality. We, also, in the US, seem to be struggling with what it means to be a Christian in the modern world, with applying the commandments that God left us to our modern reality.  However, we must always remember that the truth that God left us is eternal, that it does not become out of date.  We are not to change our minds and embrace what is politically correct at the moment, but are to follow God in the way we see him commanding us.  Paul never shied away from what God was asking him to do – may we be the same.

5/18/2012 – Pope John I – Friday of 6th week of Easter – Psalm 47:2-7; Acts 18:9-18

        Paul has a vision from God, telling him not to afraid of the people of Corinth where he is preaching.  God tells Paul that he will be protected, that he will not be harmed, that God has many holy people in that city.  We all would probably love to have that message from God, especially in a modern world that seems so against us and that sees us in a negative light in so many ways.  I bet the saint we celebrate today wished that he could receive that same protection from God.  John was the pope during the early 6th century, a time in which Arianism was very popular, in which the divinity of Christ was denied in many ways. Arianism taught that Jesus was subordinated to the Father and was created by him, that Jesus did not exist from the beginning of time. The emperor was an Arian, and had John imprisoned, from which he died from the poor treatment he received as a prisoner.  But, in our first reading, even though Paul received reassurances from God, we see that he was persecuted by many of the citizens there and that he had much opposition.  In fact, it is estimated that Paul himself spent at least 3 years in prison for preaching the word of God in different places.  As we near the end of our Easter season, as we hear from the Acts of the Apostles all of the struggles that Paul and the early Church endured, may we take heart as we continue on our own journey of faith.  As the psalmist tells us today: “God is king of all the earth.”  May we continue to recognize God as our king and as the only one whom we ultimately follow in our lives.

5/16/2012 – St Peregrine – Wednesday of sixth week of Easter – Acts 17: 15, 22 – 18: 1

       In our first reading today, Paul is in Athens trying to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the inhabitants of that city.  In the ancient world, they prayed to a lot of different gods.  In many ways, they tried to cover all the bases, not wanting to offend any one god.  Paul mentions to them a shrine that they have dedicated “to an unknown God.”  Paul says that he is now going to preach to them about the God that they unknowingly worship, because our God, the Father of Jesus, is indeed the one true God.
So many times, we see people searching in their lives for God.  I certainly saw that on the pilgrimage trail in Spain, and I see that every time I go out to the prisons to minister to the men there.  Today happens to be the saint day of St Peregrine.  He has become very popular in recent years because he is the patron saint of both cancer patients and those who are suffering from AIDS and HIV.  As a young man in Italy in the last part of the 14th century, Peregrine was actually a member of a group that advocated against the pope.  He was in the audience heckling St Philip Benizi, the head of the Servite order of priests and brothers.  Peregrine even physically struck him.  Yet, the incident brought about a gradual conversion in Peregrine, in which he eventually became a priest in the Servite order, dedicating himself to a life of preaching, holiness, and devotion to the poor and the sick in society.  Peregrine himself came down with a very terrible cancerous legion on his foot.  The night before the foot was going to be amputated, Peregrine prayed before Jesus on the cross, and had a vision of Jesus coming down from the cross and touching his leg.  The cancerous legion was cured in Peregrine, and he lived another 20 years.
When we are sick and suffering, we often pray for a physical miracle in our lives.  While Peregrine had the miracle of cure from his cancer, perhaps the greater miracle in his life was the way he turned to God in a live of service and holiness, quite a change from the way he saw the Church as the enemy while he was a youth.  Peregrine and Paul still speak to us today in the lives of faith that they lived.  We need to bring that same zeal and courage to the way we all live out the Gospel in our lives.