Saturday, Fifth Week of Easter

In today’s first reading, Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, gives us a strong sense of the early church being guided by the Holy Spirit. Paul and his companions travelled through the countryside of the Roman province of Galatia, having been told by the Holy Spirit not to preach the word in the Roman province of Asia, both provinces being in modern-day Turkey. The Spirit would not allow them to cross into the province of Bithynia either, so, instead, they came to the city of Troas, on the North West coast of modern-day Turkey. There Paul experienced the prompting of the Spirit once more in the form of a vision in which a person from Macedonia in Northern Greece called on Paul and his companions to come over and help them. Luke was showing that the Holy Spirit was guiding the early church, especially the missionary journeys of Paul. We can be confident that the Holy Spirit continues to guide the church today. The church is not just a human organization, a kind of religious multi-national corporation. Yes, it has elements that are typical of any world-wide organization. It is a human institution. More fundamentally, however, the church is a spiritual reality. The risen Lord, through the Spirit, is present in the church, shaping it and guiding it. The church cannot be shaped by opinion polls. It can only be shaped by the Lord and his Spirit. Sometimes, as Jesus says in the gospel reading today, this will put the church into conflict with the prevailing culture, ‘if they persecuted me, they will persecute you too’. The church is in the midst of the world, but it is not of the world. As Jesus declares in that gospel reading, ‘you do not belong to the world’. The really important question for the church is not, ‘what do people think of us?’ but ‘what is the Lord saying to us’ or ‘Where is the Spirit leading us?’ Answering those questions requires prayerful discernment from us all.

Twitter:  @SJtBClontarf RC
Facebook: @SJtBClontarf
Tumbler: St-John-the-baptist-Clontarf-Rd