Tuesday in the Octave of Easter
Today we continue to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord, which is emphasized in the Gospel reading for today. In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we find St. Peter’s important speech, wherein he explains how we are saved: repent and be baptized (2:38). If we pay careful attention to this passage we see that St. Peter explains that this is for children as well as adults, “to you and to your children” (2:39). The fact that he is speaking to a Jewish audience (2:5, 11, 14, and 36) underscores how this message would of course be interpreted as including children (i.e., infant baptism), since Jews circumcised sons on the eighth day, and baptism and repentance are here seen as the new entrance rite into the covenant family.
It is through baptism that we are incorporated into the family of God, the Body of Christ. All of us who have been baptized have entered a period of mystagogy, not simply the time after Easter, but rather the rest of our entire lives, where we move from the signs of our faith to the supernatural realities signified by the signs. This is the bulk of St. Peter’s preaching, and the preaching of the apostles, in the Book of Acts. They are continually trying to move their hearers beyond the signs, particularly the signs of the Old Testament, to the realities signified.
This period of time, like that of the first apostles we read about in Acts, is summed up in mission, in apostolate, in our becoming new apostles to the world. The Apostles in Acts are continually trying to transform the world, helping bring the saving message of Jesus to others. We too must go out in the joy of Easter, and bring the same saving message of Jesus to all those whom we encounter. The responsorial psalm tells us that “The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord” (33:5). This is indeed true, but we also are called upon, through our baptism, to fill the earth with the Lord’s goodness.
We must bring Jesus to others, in word and in deeds. In the strength of the Holy Spirit, we must be the goodness of the Lord in the earth, we must be the love of God, incarnate, in the world around us. This must take place in the ordinary every day hustle and bustle of our lives, at home, at work, in the street. We must serve others, and we should learn to do so with the joy of Easter in our hearts. Regardless of the liturgical season in which we find ourselves, we must be Christians, and that is a people who carry with them the joy and hope of Easter in their hearts, to spread Christ’s love and joy to all we encounter. Let us celebrate this Octave of Easter by bringing the Lord’s goodness to those we meet in our daily lives, thereby bringing Christ to the world.
- Jeff Morrow