Prophets Makes the Spirit of Jesus Visible

by Fr. David M. Knight

April 17, 2024

Wednesday of the Third week of Easter

Lectionary No. 275

Acts 8:1b-8/Jn 6:35-40

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041724.cfm

The Responsorial Psalm invites us to Easter joy — all year long: “Let all the earth cry out to God with joy” (Psalm 66). The key to this joy, affirmed in all the readings, is seeing and believing. The Psalm continues: “Come and see the works of God …. Therefore let us rejoice in him.”

Acts 8: 1-8 begins with persecution and the “lament” over Stephen. But it ends with “great joy” in the city where Philip, fleeing from persecution, proclaimed Christ and worked miracles. Those who “paid attention” to Philip’s preaching and “saw the signs he was doing” found faith and joy. The pattern is seeing, believing, rejoicing — even in persecution.

In John 6: 35-40 Jesus promises: “Anyone who sees the Son and believes in him [will] have eternal life,” joy now and forever. The source of our joy is Jesus himself, just the fact of knowing him, being in union with him, sharing his divine life: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” In Christ we will find satisfaction, peace and joy.

What do we have to “see” in order to believe and receive this joy? In the first period of evangelization God supported the proclamation of the Gospel with “signs,” miracles of healing and deliverance from demonic possession. But what people really saw in these signs was not just the miraculous event; they saw Jesus acting, proof that he was risen and alive. Miracles that don’t reveal the person of God are worth nothing; they certainly don’t lead to real faith or joy. What we need to see is Jesus alive in the members of his body on earth and acting through them. We don’t need miracles to see this, just prophets, people acting in ways that cannot be explained without grace. When divine faith, hope and love are made visible in action, then people can “see the Son” and believe he is truly risen and alive. This is our joy.

A prophetic Church makes the Spirit of Jesus visible. Insistence on law observance doesn’t do this; especially if we exclude from full participation sinners who are seeking greater union with Christ. Jesus said, “I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came, not do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me,” which is “that I should not lose anything of what he gave me.” Our first pastoral concern as Church should be to embody this same accepting love of Je- sus and express it in all our ministries. If people are weak and failing, we need to draw them in, not drive them out. We want all the earth to “cry out to God with joy,” finding his love in us.

Initiative: Be a prophet. Let people see Jesus in you, especially in the way you embody his love for the sinful, the struggling and the weak.

Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry

www.ImmersedinChrist.org

Prophets Have Life to the Full

by Fr. David M. Knight

April 16, 2024

Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter

Lectionary No. 274

Acts 7:51—8:1a/Jn 6:30-35

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041624.cfm

The Responsorial Psalm is a response to make at the moment of death and at every moment in life: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit” (Psalm 31).

These are the words Jesus said to the Father when he died (Luke 23:46). In Acts 7:51 to 8:1 Stephen addresses the same words to Jesus as he dies: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” In both cases they are a profession of belief and hope in life after death, life with God, life “to the full,” that only God can give. And so, to act on this hope is a prophetic witness to the divine life of God within us.

In John 6: 30-35 Jesus says we can have this same “life to the full” now. It is not the unmixed fullness of total joy we experience in heaven, but it is joy and essentially the same. We have now the joy we will experience in its fullness when we die. That is why the refrain of our hearts should be constantly, “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” Into your hands I commend my thoughts, my desires, my priorities and purposes, all my words and actions. “Lord Jesus, I give you my body — as I did at Baptism, as I will at the moment of death. Live this day with me, live this day in me, live this day through me. Let me think with your thoughts, speak with your words and act as your body on earth: Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”

Jesus says that he himself is the “true bread from heaven.” He is the bread that “gives life to the world.” If we have him we have life and joy. And we can have the experience of possessing him — a human, physical, concrete experience — every time we receive him in Eucharist. He is our life, not only hereafter but here.

Bread is not just life-giving; it is satisfying. It satisfies hunger and gives pleasure. Eating together brings people together in joy. We eat and drink to celebrate.

This is what Eucharist is — “whoever comes to me will never hunger” — and the aftermath of Eucharist is a deeper, more abiding awareness of the presence of Christ in our hearts, of our union of body, soul and spirit with him and with one an- other. In Eucharist, when the host is lifted up and we offer ourselves with Christ and in Christ, saying with him “This is my body given up for you,” we are saying “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit — and my flesh, my whole existence, all I do.” In Communion we say it again as Jesus gives himself totally to us and we to him. This is “life, life to the full” (John 10:10). This is Christian joy.

Initiative: Be a prophet. Change the way you participate at Mass. Listen intently to the words, grasp their meaning, make their meaning your own. Live them.

Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry

www.ImmersedinChrist.org

Prophets Have Living Faith

by Fr. David M. Knight

April 15, 2024

Monday of the Third Week of Easter

Lectionary No. 273

Acts 6:8-15/Jn 6:22-29

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041524.cfm

The Responsorial Psalm identifies the “path of life” with following God’s law: “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord” (Psalm 119).

Acts 6: 8-15 puts us on guard, however, against identifying religion with law observance. Those who did that, the Phari- see party in Israel, were Jesus’ most bitter enemies. After the Resurrection, it was the “Judaizing party” who were the greatest source of division in the Church (see Acts 15: 1-29). Paul fought against them during his whole ministry. And in today’s Church, those who focus on rules and regulations, judging and criticizing all who appear not to observe them, are the same well of bitterness and division.

What all these groups have in common is: they resist change, clinging to the rules and customs they grew up with, their “traditions” (Matthew 15: 1-9). Those who attacked Stephen did so because they were afraid Jesus would “change the customs that Moses handed down to us.”

But change is what prophets are all about. We are living up to our baptismal consecration as prophets when we see and show, in new and creative ways, how to apply the general principles of Jesus (such as “love one another as I have loved you”) to the concrete circumstances of our time and place. In the prophets the words of God “take flesh,” because they become concrete and practical. The prophets keep making our religion more and more authentic by adapting it to the reality of changing circumstances in a multitude of ways. This upsets those who want a religion fixed in frozen inertia. Their religion is “dead” and so are they.

Cardinal John Henry Newman said, “To live is to change, and to live fully is to change frequently.” The most practical way become a prophet is to promise God you will make constant changes in your lifestyle — guided by a desire to make everything you say, do, decide or use bear witness to Christ ‘s values.

In John 6: 22-29 Jesus teaches us how to “follow the law of the Lord” authentically: “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” The first law of Christians is to interact with the person of Jesus with living faith: faith that he is risen and alive; faith that he is with us and within us; that he is acting through us, guiding, and strengthening us. We interpret and apply all rules in the light of our living knowledge of his mind and heart and will. This is what brings religion to life and makes us say, “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord.” And this is the joy of the prophets.

Initiative: Be a prophet. Look for Jesus in everything you do. Interact with him, respond to his words, to the voice of his Spirit. Live by living faith in Jesus alive.

Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry

www.ImmersedinChrist.org