Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter
In this fifth week of Easter, we are treated with another amazing tale from the Acts of the Apostles. Imagine Barnabas and Paul being identified as Greek gods! While it is certainly a testament to the amazing deeds that they were doing, those deeds were done in the name of Christ – and how the crowd there could be so confused as to think that Paul and Barnabas were gods, rather than that Jesus was God, is really crazy! On the one hand, it is but another example of how we as human beings look for things to worship, whether heroes, miracle-workers, money, clothes or whatever. We love seeing amazing things, beautiful things, and things that flatter ourselves.
This story, however, contains an important message about the meaning and function of witness. We all love to get attention for things we have done. We love praise for our good work, our children’s success, our appearance, etc. But notice how Paul and Barnabas do not want praise for what they have done. It is clear that they did not perform any miracles for their own fame. The whole point was to witness to the power of Jesus, the Christ: “Not to us O, Lord, but to your name give glory” (Ps. 1:15) is our psalm response, and that pretty much captures the message about the first reading.
All the good that we do – anything that rightly wins us positive attention – ought to function in such a way that it truly gives glory to God. This is what it means to love Jesus and to make a dwelling place with him (as mentioned in the gospel passage from John). Our lives become so permeated by dwelling in God’s love, that everything we do, we do for Christ. And people can’t help but notice. We don’t have to post signs or make flyers announcing to everyone that the reason we are cheerful, kind, generous, hard working, loving, and so on is that we love Jesus and dwell in God’s love. No, all we have to do is go about our life offering our work, our family, our friendships for his glory, and eventually people will find out.
It is always a struggle not to let pride overwhelm us when we are successful. One key is to remember at these moments that it is all due to the grace of God. Another thing we might remember is this scripture passage from Acts. The crippled man is healed not so that Paul and Barnabas can be heroes, but so that they can spread the news of Jesus the Christ, who lived, suffered, died and rose from the dead to save his people.
Today, take a moment to reflect on your past or current successes. Thank God for those accomplishments, and pray that from now on every act of your day may be a powerful witness to God’s love in your life. In particular, this might be a good time to make a renewed commitment to the traditional Catholic morning offering, wherein we offer our day’s work and other events to God upon awakening.
- Maria Morrow