Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Today's Mass Readings

There are several interesting elements in today’s three Readings that are worth noting, all of which link in some way to the Christian concept of discipleship.

In our First Reading, St. Paul encounters Timothy and decides to take him as a traveling companion. Timothy is himself both Jew and Gentile, having a Jewish mother (which is the general requirement for membership in the Jewish community) and a Gentile father. Through his parentage, Timothy seems to represent the Church of this period, which is growing community of both Jews and Gentiles. St. Paul, who will elsewhere argue vehemently against the need for Gentile Christians to become Jews, ends up having Timothy circumcised. This strange decision is presumably reached so that there will be no doubt about Timothy’s status within the Covenant, so that Timothy will be accepted by those to whom he is called to serve as a messenger. As these disciples travel about relaying the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem (that were reached in the previous chapter), the faith of the Christian community grows. The overriding theme of the First Reading, however, is following the lead of the Holy Spirit. According to Acts of the Apostles, Paul and Timothy intend to travel through one region and preach the Gospel only to be “prevented by the Holy Spirit” from doing so. Instead of allowing them to go where they have determined they should go, the Holy Spirit guides these disciples to preach to the people of Macedonia. They receive a vision, which is not necessarily the vision that they wanted, and begin to recognize that they are called in a different way than they have originally supposed. This does not mean that they will never make it to these other regions; it only means that they have other work to do that they must accomplish first.

Our Responsorial Psalm commands that “all the earth cry out to God with joy.” This may seem like an odd message, in light of the First Reading. We are not always very joyful when our plans our interrupted, as Paul and Timothy’s plans were interrupted. When we have it in our mind to do one thing and we are asked to do another, it can be a great stress that we do not easily accept or welcome. Yet the message of the Psalm is that God’s kindness and faithfulness endures. Although we may not always understand how God is working in our lives, the implication of the Responsorial Psalm is that we must trust that God is shepherding us where we are called to go.

When read in the light of these earlier passages, the Gospel may appear even more difficult for us to follow. If we take the actions of St. Paul in the First Reading as a model, we have been shown various things about ourselves. We have been shown that we may be called to choose companions to help us spread the Gospel and that we may be called to help prepare our companions for such ministry. We have already been shown that we may be called by God to travel to places we do not know, to lead others to Him, and to teach others the decisions of the Church. We have been shown that, sometimes, the places where we think we are called to go are not really the places that the Spirit is leading us to. And yet, we are to be joyful and trusting wherever we are called.

But now, with the Gospel, we are also shown that the world may hate us for all of this. We are not to belong to the world but to Christ- and Christ was rejected by the world. And so, we may be asked to give up not only our own choices about how to serve God- but we may be asked to serve God in ways that the world will not respect or understand. And yet, we are to cry out to God with joy.

This may seem like too much to take seriously. Most of us are convinced that it is not our calling to travel about the world spreading the Gospel- and perhaps that is true in most cases. However, it may be our calling to move a little beyond our comfort zones once and a while. Perhaps there is someone at work whom we have considered asking to come to Church with us- but we have been afraid to ask them. Perhaps there is someone at the grocery store or a neighbor or a casual acquaintance who needs to learn about Christ- but whom we have been afraid to reach out to. Today’s readings should give us strength to reconsider this. Today’s readings should encourage us to let the Spirit lead us, knowing that such actions may lead to the hatred of others, and yet also knowing that God is faithful and that we should cry out to him with joy.

Matthew Minix