Location: Our Lady’s Chapel at Assumption Seminary
These chapters of the Acts of the Apostles would be enough to write the scripts for several adventure movies. From the martyrdom of Stephen, through the dispersion of the early Christian community and the subsequent conversion of Paul; today we find ourselves at the evangelization of Antioch. This city would later become Peter’s see, before he was established as the Bishop of Rome. But among so many things, I would like to highlight something that underlies: This first Christian community feels and knows itself to be missionary. What was stuck is mobilized and what was upset is settled. All persistent motion and inertia are broken.
Peter’s encounter with Cornelius had just taken place, crossing a watershed towards universality. It was precisely the third bishop of Antioch, Ignatius, who would coin the term “Catholic”, or universal, to refer to the Church.
That fact is more eloquent in light of what happened years earlier, and which is read at the end of today’s first reading: “it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.” After washing the feet of his disciples, at the Last Supper, the Lord had indicated to them: “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13:35). The prophecy is fulfilled and by its very nature love expands. There lies the root of our identity, the source of the inexhaustible spring of the life of the Church.
The Holy Spirit blows where he wills; you can hear the sound the wind makes, “but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (Jn 3, 8). He who is born of the Spirit begins to behave like the Spirit. The sheep know the voice of the Shepherd, they listen to it and follow Him. The Shepherd is imbued by the smell of his sheep and is willing to lay down his life for them.
To sail moved by the winds of the Holy Spirit, we must raise the sails. This means that we must continually develop our sensitivity to reality and to the will of God. From prayer, let us be moved to action and in action be contemplative. We must know the voice of the Shepherd and follow him, while acting in his name with closeness to the sheep, being imbued by their scent.
Like the first Christian communities, we must develop endurance against discouragement, through an attitude of trust in the power of the Holy Spirit. The fruits and the growth of the community of disciples depend on Him. Only through that trust can we persevere with joy in our proclamation. We must be aware of the current context of transition between eras, when the references which give meaning to life and order to coexistence have been lost.
Our first task is to be a reference of light in the midst of darkness and of flavor among so much bitterness that the flock suffers. We must be what we want to find! We must fully live our identity, finding in our filial support to Pope Francis the greatest assurance of fidelity to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Nothing is timelier than the Pope’s invitation to every Christian – so simple and yet so fresh – “at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day.”
May Our Lady of Guadalupe help us to be what we seek, breaking the bureaucratic inertia that scares away instead of attracting, and renewing our adventurous spirit of missionary disciples with a universal vision.
