May 20, 2015
WEDNESDAY, Easter
week seven
The
readings express the concern Jesus and Paul have for the protection of the flock
after they are gone. In response, the Responsorial
Psalm cites the last verses of yesterday’s Psalm, emphasizing God’s power,
and inviting us again: “Sing to God, O
kingdoms of the earth” (Psalm
68).
In Acts 20: 28-38 Paul
warns the elders of the Church in Ephesus that “Some even from your own group
will come distorting the truth.” To help them unmask these “savage wolves,” he
reminds them that his own teaching was made credible by his lifestyle: “I
coveted no one's silver or gold or clothing” and “worked with my own hands to
support myself and my companions.” Paul showed them by example “that by such work we must support the weak, remembering
the words of the Lord Jesus, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
Authentic Christian witness is built on the example of
Christ’s words lived out in action. And this is what sustains the faith of the
community. Pope Paul VI was emphatic: “The first means of evangelization is the
witness of an authentically Christian life,” life lived in union with others, in
“a communion that nothing should destroy.” We have to resist the divisive
influence of those who close in on themselves and separate from the Church as
if they were the only true believers. Authentic Christians value union with the
Church — hierarchical, clerical and lay — over all particular issues, no matter
how emotional Their life is communal but not clannish: “at the same time it is
a life given to one’s neighbor with limitless zeal.”
Paul was prophetic when he wrote, “People today listen more
willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if they do listen to teachers, it
is because they are witnesses.” It is
the teaching of Pope Paul that “the Church will evangelize the world by… the
witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this
world, in short, the witness of sanctity” (Evangelization
in the Modern World, #41).
In John 17: 11-19
Jesus takes for granted that his disciples will be at odds with their culture:
“The world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do
not belong to the world.” We cannot be prophets and conformists at the same
time. Witnesses, Paul VI says, radiate “faith in values that go beyond current
values, and hope in something not seen, that one would not dare to imagine. Through
this wordless witness they stir up irresistible questions in the hearts of
those who see how they live” Ibid.
#21). This is to be a prophet.
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