OPEN YOUR HEART TO THE BREATH OF GOD
When an exemplary head of a family dies, it is a great consolation for his wife and friends if his ideals and style of life keep living in his children. “He keeps inspiring them,” they say. Jesus is not dead, for he died and rose again, yet he is no longer physically among us. But his very own Spirit is still with us, like a breath, the wind, even a storm. Where he blows we feel him without seeing him. He touches our hearts and moves us forward to love and serve as Jesus did, to give warmth to this cold world, to renew us and our Church and our world through our hands and hearts. We pray that this Sprit be alive in us.
First Reading: Acts 8:5-8; 14-17
And Saul just went wild, devastating the church, entering house after house after house, dragging men and women off to jail. Forced to leave home base, the followers of Jesus all became missionaries. Wherever they were scattered, they preached the Message about Jesus. Going down to a Samaritan city, Philip proclaimed the Message of the Messiah. When the people heard what he had to say and saw the miracles, the clear signs of God’s action, they hung on his every word. Many who could neither stand nor walk were healed that day. The evil spirits protested loudly as they were sent on their way. And what joy in the city!
When the apostles in Jerusalem received the report that Samaria had accepted God’s Message, they sent Peter and John down to pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit. Up to this point they had only been baptized in the name of the Master Jesus; the Holy Spirit hadn’t yet fallen on them. Then the apostles laid their hands on them and they did receive the Holy Spirit.
Second Reading: 1 Peter 3:15-18
If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.
Gospel: John 14:15-21
“If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!
“I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.
“The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that’s who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him.”
Prayer
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
your Son has promised
not to leave us orphans.
Give us the Holy Spirit of Truth,
to be with us and to live in us,
that we may know where are we going
and that we may follow Jesus Christ
on his way to you and to people.
May this Spirit kindle in us
the love of Jesus,
that we make the Good News of his love
visible and tangible to all.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Video available at: bibleclaret.org