Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter
This past Holy Thursday our new Pope Francis celebrated the washing of the feet in the way he was accustomed. While the Pope felt comfortable visiting the detention center, and washing the feet of women and non-Christians. His actions made other people feel uncomfortable.
Clearly, since the time of Jesus and the Apostles, the preaching and the living of the Gospel has made people feel uncomfortable. In today’s reading the high priest and his companions are unsettled by the preaching of the Apostles in the temple. The leaders are so bothered by the good news being proclaimed that they attempt to confine it by locking up the Apostles.
What is our reaction when the Gospel, the preaching or the teachings of the Lord make us uncomfortable? Sometimes, out of fear, I try to confine the one who came to save the whole world. This conforms the method and manner of God’s actions in the world to my will and my point of view. I tell myself the story of a God made in my own image and likeness. This effectively limits the ways I perceive and live out the Gospel message. These limits confine the working of the Holy Spirit in one way or another. When we judge others based on what we believe to be the truth, we limit our ability to see what God is really doing in the world.
What are the steps we can take to allow Christ to free us from the cells in which we have allowed ourselves to become trapped? How would that freedom empower us to glorify the Lord with our lives?
God You so loved the world that You sent Your Son into the world not to condemn us, but to redeem us. In Your humanity Lord, You fully embraced Your life, death and resurrection, so that we might understand how to live with God at the center of our lives. Help to free us from all the ways we confine Your Spirit of truth that is Yours alone. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Alleluia!
-Michael Montgomery