Acts 8:1-8 & 1 Peter 5:5-14

 
Simon Peter ‘the Rock’ of the early Church, Stephen the first Christian martyr and Philip Jesus’ disciple who was the first Apostle to Samaria, along with all the other Apostles had this in common: They needed a lot of fortitude to be able to proclaim what they had seen – the resurrected Christ Jesus, the Good News of God’s salvation of humankind. It was their Risen Lord who gave them that courage, perseverance and faithfulness.  It was He who taught them about the gift of the Holy Spirit when he visited them before he ascended into heaven, and who then anointed them with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, fifty days after the Resurrection. But it was only with continuing alertness and self-discipline that Peter, Stephen, and Philip could live into the presence of the Holy Spirit of God, live through the challenges of their various ministries and do the works that they accomplished with their lives. It is the same for us today. It is only with alertness and self-discipline that you and I are able to lead lives that proclaim the Good News of God’s redemption of our humanity. Living life in the Spirit, we need to always be aware of not only the Holy Spirit’s movements in and through us, but also of our “adversary, the devil who prowls around looking for someone to devour” as St. Peter call it. Additionally, we need to discipline ourselves to be obedient to the will of God, which is love in truth and truth in love. Will I remain alert and self-disciplined like the early disciples of Jesus to resist evil and stay steadfast in faith, no matter what sufferings come and go through my life? Holy Spirit of Jesus, help me remain alert and self-disciplined to resist evil.    
 
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me, I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.   (Psalm 16:7-8) 
 
Let God’s people then recognize that they are a new creation in Christ, and with all vigilance understand by whom they have been adopted and whom they have adopted. 
St. Leo the Great.   
Acedia, or spiritual despondency, otherwise known as the deadly sin of Sloth, is a vice that opposes alertness and self-discipline. For an in depth disclosure of Acedia, see Abbot Jean-Charles Nault’s book,  The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times.A Happy and a Blessed Easter Season to you and your family! 
Much Grace, Peace and Joy be with you!
 
Soli ad gloriam Dei
Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook &www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca 
​

 
Luke 24:13-25

 
Cleopas and his friend who were walking away from Jerusalem to Emmaus the evening of the Third Day following Jesus’ death were disconsolate and even disturbed. They had thought that Jesus would bring them salvation – a reason to live and to die; for, and by, the love of God. Not so, it seemed to them. The Master had been crucified as a common criminal.  Where was justice, where was the light of God in this darkness?  So too, we walk away from our churches and routines of praise and prayer, disconsolate and upset that what we thought would save us and bless us, hasn’t. Jesus’ response to Cleopas and his companion was to walk beside them for a time and review with them all the scriptures that foretold the death and resurrection of the Christ – and then he simply took bread, blessed it and gave it to them. Jesus answers our desolations and disturbances in the same way.  He continues to ‘feed us with the holy mysteries’ in just just as he did the evening of his Resurrection. We too can walk with Christ Jesus and hear him remind us of our place in the history of salvation – through prayer and reading Scripture (so much richer for us who now have the New Testament as well!), through song and music, through the people and events in our lives,  and through the glory and movements of creation. We too can receive from him bread blessed and broken, through Holy Communion and the Liturgies of the Church. And when we faithfully and hopefully ‘return to Jerusalem’ like Cleopas and his friend, to participate fully in the Body of Christ that is the Church, we too can receive the comfort, the wisdom and the protection of the Holy Spirit from the hand of God. Will I give into my desolations and let them hide the presence of Jesus from me, or will I realize the Lord walking with me, listen to his reminders of God’s mercy for me, receive his Grace and return to a life deeply rooted in prayer and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God?  Holy Spirit of Jesus, remind me of my place in your history of salvation.
 
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me, I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.   (Psalm 16:7-8) 
 
Let God’s people then recognize that they are a new creation in Christ, and with all vigilance understand by whom they have been adopted and whom they have adopted. 
St. Leo the Great.   
 
A Happy and a Blessed Easter Season to you and your family! 
Much Grace, Peace and Joy be with you!
 
Soli ad gloriam Dei
Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook & www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Gospel Mystery of the Day              Friday, April 21, 2023
                                                       
 Good Morning!      
Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119)
 
Acts 5:17 -26 & John 20:19-31

 
The half-message of this life is evident and at the foundation of most of life’s activities: Do the best you can, get the most you can and be as happy as you can.  But the whole message of this life has to do with the Creator of human beings and his love for them.  After freeing Peter and John from prison the Holy Spirit instructed them to stand in the temple and ‘tell the people the whole message about this life’. Peter’s two letters (c.63 AD) and John’s three letters (c.90 AD) to the young churches tell the whole message they would have been proclaiming that day at the temple in detail: that God is love; that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and that only by believing and knowing God can we have the abundant life we are designed to live. The full message of this life is so far beyond the best, the most and relative happiness, that I often miss it – until I take time to recognize and listen to the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within my soul, informing my mind, giving peace to my heart and strength to my body. Will I be satisfied with merely the human message of this life, or will I open the ears of my soul to hear the whole message about God’s love and mercy for human kind living here on earth today? Holy Spirit, help me live into the whole message of this life. 
 
The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.   (Psalm 118:14) 
 
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World
 
For a clear introduction to the First Letter of St. Peter see   https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/1-peter  
 
A Happy and a Blessed Easter Season to you and your family! 
Much Grace, Peace and Joy be with you!
 
Soli ad gloriam Dei
Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook & www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Gospel Mystery of the Day              Thursday, April 20, 2023
                                                       
 Good Morning!      
Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119)
 
John 20:19-31

 
Jesus was not just one in a long line of people through the ages whose bodies have been resuscitated from death to resume their earthly existence.  Rather, Jesus was the first, and the only, Son of God who was the Son of Mankind, to rise himself, through no other agency, from a brutal death to bring about new and abundant life for all of humanity, free from the darkness of sin. The Death and Resurrection of Jesus is so pivotal in human history that it was immediately life-changing not only for the first Apostles but also for the thousands of people in the first century A.D. They like “Doubting Thomas”  were soundly converted from doubt to belief by an encounter with the risen Christ themselves, either in person before the Ascension, or after Pentecost through the touch of the Holy Spirit of Jesus. Thomas the Apostle after rising from his knees before his risen Master in the Upper Room, went on in his life to become a missionary to India. There he spent 72 years, until he was martyred while praying, building the seven churches and numerous communities of Christians that still bear witness to his faithfulness to Jesus. Does the Resurrection of Christ Jesus similarly impact my life’s words and deeds? Will my life, as a believer in the saving grace of the death and resurrection of Jesus, similarly bear the marks of my commitment to my faith in Christ? Holy Spirit, help me not doubt but believe.
 
The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.   (Psalm 118:14) 
 
Jesus’ death is of another kind: it is occasioned, not by the presumption of men, but by the humility of God. It is not the inevitable consequence of a false hubris, but the fulfillment of a love in which God himself comes down to us, so as to draw us back up to himself…
Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Holy Week
 
For a short biography of St. Thomas the Apostle, see
 https://www.stapostle.org/st-thomas-church-parish-history/saint-thomas-biography/
 
A Happy and a Blessed Easter Season to you and your family! 
Much Grace, Peace and Joy be with you!
 
 
Soli ad gloriam Dei
Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook & www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Gospel Mystery of the Day              Thursday, April 13, 2023
                                                        The Octave of Easter
 
Good Morning!      
Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119)
 
Matthew 28:8-15

 
The contrast is not only marked, but it is earth shaking. Two views of Jesus’ empty tomb  have rumbled through history for the past 2000+ years. To the two Marys who had just witnessed angels in His empty tomb in the garden, the Risen Jesus, the living Christ, is their friend, their healer and their Master whom they love - who connects with them heart to heart:  “Do not be afraid; go out and tell my brothers to into Galilee; there they will see me.”  To the guards who witnessed only the phenomenon of an open and empty tomb the scene was more confusing than connecting. They had never got to  ‘know’ Jesus heart to heart, and so scurried to report scientific fact to the authorities who for their own good fabricated a logical explanation, a deception born of darkness that still today circulates in the ‘learned’ communities of the world, and supports logic rather than love and ‘keeps people out of trouble’.  Which version of the resurrection of Jesus motivates my life? Will I subscribe to the mind-full explanation of the empty tomb, or will I, like the Marys whole-heartedly and mindfully proclaim the joy of the living presence of Christ Jesus in our lives?  Holy Sprit, help me know the truth of Christ Risen, beyond the deceits of the world.
 
He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake… Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”  (Psalm 23:3) 
 
Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
St. Augustine
 
A Happy and a Blessed Easter Season to you and your family! 
Much Grace, Peace and Joy be with you!
 
 
Soli ad gloriam Dei
Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook & www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca