As Christ instructed us in prayer during his public ministry, we are now in a time in the life of the Church where there are enough prayers, devotions, consecrations, and other methods of uniting ourselves to God for anyone according to their needs. Prayer can be as simple as a mental conversation you might have with God, or it might be as developed and complex as regularly praying the liturgy of the hours. But prayer in any form is ultimately a humbling of yourself before God either to express your needs, thank Him for His grace, or to offer Him praise. The last thing we ask of God in the Lord’s Prayer is to lead us not into temptation and to deliver us from evil. We need protection from our sins. We are powerless against temptation. Prayer must primarily be seen as protection against sin and evil. While it is true that all prayer is ultimately the same expression of communicating with God, different prayers are meant to protect us in different ways. For example, the Mass is a single prayer, but through it, we receive life-sustaining aid through the body of Christ. There is nothing more powerful or protective than that.

But when we are in the midst of a spiritual battle, especially an interior one in which we are attempting to overcome the evil tendencies we have within ourselves, we need to arm ourselves with something that will actively protect our spirit. There is not a single more powerful spiritual weapon than the rosary; the rosary is unique in that it is a single prayer made up of a collection of simple prayers, but constructed in such a way that makes it most effective in having our needs heard by God. The rosary is also a physical sacramental, which can be blessed, carried around, placed in significant spots, or made into a part of your everyday life. A physical rosary should not be viewed as something to “ward off” evil spirits, or something that acts like a charm. Instead, the rosary’s power comes in its use - reciting the decades of the rosary that consist of persistent petitions to the Father and to our Blessed Mother, while reflecting on the Mysteries of our Faith. If we pray because we wish to protect ourselves, then persistently calling on the aid of God the Father through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary is by far the best way to do so. After all, it is sin that causes us to need protection, and it is precisely the mysteries of the rosary that we reflect on that purchased for us the deliverance from our sins. We should remind ourselves that prayer is a weapon - a weapon that brings life and hope to those who bear it, especially the rosary.

For those of us who are devoted to the praying of the rosary, we ought to be aware that this is the most powerful defense against the work of Satan, but it also means that we are now even greater targets of the effects of evil. When we utilize the great weapon of the rosary, we neutralize and resist the evil spirits that prowl the world, but that means that these same spirits will be even more vicious towards us in their last attempt to lead us into despair and to turn us away from God. Those who are most effective at overcoming the work of Satan become his greatest enemies, but that is because they are made powerful through the protection of God. Bear the weapon of the rosary confidently and intentionally, but do not let it go. The power of the rosary comes from its use; you will always be protected as long as you pray with it. In this battle against evil, arm yourself and take up the weapon of love: the sacred prayer of the most holy rosary.

The Apostles were the most important figures in the history of Christianity. Among them, one was given the keys to the kingdom and led the Church after the ascension of Christ. Another was called Jesus’ beloved disciple and was the only one who remained faithful to him through his crucifixion. Another betrayed Christ and led to his arrest. These twelve men were hand chosen by Christ to represent specific aspects of the Church and to be leaders for these early communities. So what happened when they all died off? Clearly the Church lived on and if it needed any guidance and leadership at its beginning, it certainly needed guidance and leadership after the last Apostle died. Fortunately, Christ gave the Apostles specific power and authority that was unique to them. With that authority, the first twelve began to choose successors and name others who had the same amount of authority. Today, the office of the Apostles is carried on through the bishops.

Things get a bit more complicated when we look at Judas, though. Jesus loved him and chose him. Judas was a valid Apostle who was given the same amount of power as the other eleven. The great tragedy in the story of Judas though was that, even though God would have granted him forgiveness if he sought it, Judas couldn’t forgive himself. His death was tragic, but it gave us a valuable lesson on the organization of the Church even in Scripture. As we hear today in this passage from Acts, the other Apostles declared that it was necessary that Judas be replaced; this means that Judas was not a false Apostle nor was his sins an excuse to get rid of his office. The office was instituted by Christ, and to end it would be exercising authority that the Apostles did not have. There were many faithful followers who could have replaced Judas, but only one was chosen by the Holy Spirit, not by the desires of men. This was Matthias. Matthias is clearly not one of the most prominent Apostles, but his story provides valuable lessons to us about the Church: the office of Apostle must continue, the selection of successors is guided by the Holy Spirit, the actions of past Apostles and bishops do not invalidate their office, and faithful obedience will lead to great rewards.

Matthias, unlike some of the twelve originally chosen by Christ, was with Jesus and followed Jesus every moment of his public ministry, from his baptism to his resurrection. Matthias was content and accepted that Christ did not choose him as one of the leaders initially. Matthias instead focused on his duty to love and serve his master, with no desire to receive anything more beyond what was promised by Christ to all. As a result, the Holy Spirit chose Matthias to be the first successor, initiating an unbroken line of succession that continues today through the bishops. Matthias was fundamentally a follower. He loved being a follower because his love for his master meant more than any other type of power. We must follow his example. We are first and foremost followers of Christ. If our love for him is true and takes priority over everything else, then God will entrust us to teach that to others. To be a leader, we must first learn how to follow.

The Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life is absolutely clear: life begins at conception, at which time it inherits a basic dignity that remains and should be protected until its natural death. Our fundamental belief that life begins at conception is affirmed in the incarnation, which did not occur on the day Christ was born, but on the day when Mary said yes to being the mother of God. At that moment, the Holy Spirit came down upon her and instilled God made man within her womb. As it was with Christ, so it is with us: we came into being in the moment of our conception. That being said, the day we choose to celebrate when we came into this world is our birthday. There is good reason for this.

We came into existence at the moment of our conception, but we came into the world on the day of our birth. The Church exists in precisely the same way because she is a divinely created body, specifically the Mystical Body of Christ. The moment she came into being was on the cross after Christ had died and a spear was thrust into his side. Blood and water spewed forth, which are the means by which we enter into the Mystical Body of Christ through baptism. Still, the Church was hidden from the world. It existed, but it needed to be protected and fortified from the forces of the world in the same way a child needs to be protected and fortified in its mother’s womb before it is ready for the world. Even as Christ ascended into heaven, the Church was still not ready. It required the coming of the Holy Spirit to descend upon the disciples, to fill their innermost being with fortitude and wisdom, and to send them out into the world. This occurred on the night of Pentecost. This is one of the most important days in the entire year for the Church because we are celebrating our birthday. We celebrate the disciples going out into the world and beginning the mission and ministry that began with the words of Christ, found its calling on the cross, and was finally prepared through the descent of the Holy Spirit. 

We must look at the celebration of Pentecost with a proper understanding of what it means to be an active Christian. The Gospels reveal to us that it is simply not enough to know the teachings of Christ. It is simply not enough to believe that Christ rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven. If we want to be full members of Christ’s Church, it is absolutely crucial that we first receive the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Confirmation before we go out into the world as witnesses of Christ. If we use the analogy of an individual life, we are still dependent on the nurturing of the Church before we individually receive the Holy Spirit just as a child depends on the nurturing of a mother within her womb. In the sacrament of Confirmation, we are telling the confirmandi that they are about to be sent out into the world as witnesses to Christ. If we want the Church to flourish and to spread to the ends of the earth, we must stress the importance of the sacrament to our young people. The first step is simply celebrating and learning about the birthday of our Mother Church.

When we actively choose to do something wrong as human beings, our first and immediate fear is the potential of anyone finding out. If anyone does find out and makes it known to others, our next fear is of the potential consequences we might face. Rarely do we find the time to truly reflect on what actual remorse might look like in our hearts - to have our failings made known and to face the consequences of our actions so that we may begin the path towards forgiveness. In God, though, He adds another layer of mercy to His forgiveness of our sins against Him: He does not blame us, reprimand us, or chastise us, but rather gives us new life in Him.

In the age of the Resurrection, we are still rejoicing in the fact that our Savior conquered death and offered to bring us into new life. But throughout Scripture, we are also faced with the guilt of being those who are responsible for Christ going to his death in the first place. In this passage from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter tells the crowds that the God they worshiped walked among them, yet they handed him over and denied him of his basic dignity and rights; they put to death the author of life. We may consider that Peter was referencing the actual act of his arrest and crucifixion, but as beloved children of God, we must place ourselves in the position of the crowd here. Had the Jews not turned in Christ to be arrested, Christ (or God Incarnate) would have to die some other way; the reason for this is because he came specifically to offer himself as a sacrifice in atonement for not only our sins but for those of the whole world. We may not have physically been in the room when Jesus was on trial, we may not have been in the mob that urged Pontius Pilate to crucify him, we may not have driven the nails into his hands, but we are all responsible for him being in that situation through our sins. The guilt of such knowledge can be crushing, but the Spirit speaks through Peter, and his words are not condemning. Instead, they are hope-filled: those who put Christ to death acted in ignorance, and God understands this. However, we are no longer in the same ignorance those men were 2000 years ago; now that we have been given the fullness of the truth of Christ and that we are responsible for maintaining the perfect sacrifice Christ offered, we must repent, turn away from sin, and be converted.

Christ’s first message whenever appearing to his followers in his resurrected body is “peace be with you.” There is no implicit or judgmental message of blame, or wondering why they abandoned him or allowed him to die in such a manner. His message is one of mercy, one of peace. More importantly, he stands among them with the intention of calming their hearts about the true purpose of his Incarnation. Throughout his public ministry, he meant to convey the fact that he was the fulfillment of all the scriptures. No matter what, he was to suffer and die as a perfect sacrifice for the atonement of the world’s sins, and he would rise on the third day. Every sin committed before, during, and after Christ shares a responsibility in his suffering, but he wants us to know he took on that suffering gladly because of just how intensely he loves us. If we want to reciprocate that fully sacrificial love, we must turn away from sin so that the one we love may not have suffered in vain. We put to death the author of life, but as author of life, he took our failings and brought us into life with him. In this, there is mercy, forgiveness, and peace.

Some individuals are simply more capable than others. There are people who are extremely talented in pretty much anything they do, and there are others who struggle finding any area in which they can excel. There isn’t very much we can do to change our natural abilities, but we do generally have control over our personal actions. We can choose to practice doing something we have the capacity to be better at. We can decide whether or not to be a morally upstanding person. We can even choose to be someone who does anything they want regardless of how it affects others. While our natural abilities are out of our control, our dignity and our morality is something we can always work on. Better yet, there is something even more hopeful about this fact - we can start becoming a better version of ourselves at any point in our lives.

The Church entirely consists of weak human beings; in fact, the weaker the person is, the more God becomes evident in the Church. When the Church was in control of individuals who could not rely on their natural abilities, God worked through them to reveal that He is the one actually in control. When the Church was led by highly capable but immoral individuals, it was only through Divine providence that the Church was able to survive the damage done. As weak people, we in the Church today should look at our past and have hope in the future of the Church. Still, the greatest sign of hope for the individual is that God does not keep score. As long as we are willing to allow Him to work through us, He will not define us by our pasts, even if others will. Peter and John are seen as uneducated and simple men, but even their enemies cannot deny the miraculous works being done by their hands. Mary Magdalene was possessed by seven demons, but she gave in to the Lord and became the first witness to the Resurrection. The two disciples in Emmaus were escaping their community out of fear, but Christ revealing himself to them motivated them to return. Meanwhile, the eleven Apostles, the most trusted members of Christ’s inner-circles, and the chief priests, the highest authorities in Judaism, defined these people by their pasts, which blinded them to what they had to share. 

Perhaps Peter and John were uneducated and simple men. It required an exhausting seven exorcisms of Mary Magdalene before she was ready to follow Christ. The two disciples in Emmaus had abandoned their community. Regardless of these facts, they carried with them the Truth. The Truth did not originate with them, but was shared with them by God, who desired that they in turn shared it with others. Because we are weak people, we cannot judge others for being weak. We cannot ignore them simply because of their pasts. The Truth is the Truth; it doesn't matter who says it or how they share it. Look at our Church - we would have never survived if we relied on the abilities of men. We have only survived and will continue to thrive because we have the Truth. Our weaknesses only emphasize how much of this is in God’s hands and not ours.

In the Church, we rejoice whenever members of our community receive the Sacraments of Initiation through Baptism, First Communion, and the reception of the Holy Spirit through Confirmation. At the Easter Vigil Mass, the elect receive all three. Around this same time of the liturgical year, those who have been in the process of catechism will receive those individual Sacraments of Initiation for which they have been preparing. Regardless of which sacraments you receive, the process and time of preparation for their reception can be long; as a Church, we Catholics do not bestow these sacraments the moment someone asks for them. We need to be absolutely sure that they understand the gravity of what it means to be a Catholic - to be a Catholic is to be a small, singular part of something far greater than yourself.

For the modern Christian, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary. However, since the inception of the Church, we are very clearly shown that we are also meant to be in a community, not simply millions or billions of individuals with a personal and private relationship with Christ. We share Christ with one another just as Christ shared himself with us. The Church has spent much of its history fighting heresies and misunderstandings on who Christ was and is. Why? If the most important thing is for us to have a personal relationship with Christ, why would the Church bother with the drama and the heartbreak that heresy brings? Why not just let people want to believe what they want about Christ? The answer is simple: to be in unity means something. Christ is not an esoteric idea or a personal philosophy. He was a real human being, made of real flesh and bone, who made real decisions from his own will out of a real love for his people. He lived in a real community at a real moment in history. His relationship with the Father was real. His divinity was real. His sacrifice was real. His resurrection was real. His Church, the Church for which he came down to establish, is real. It is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. It is universal. Christ told us that, “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Our unity and our communal worship is exactly what Christ envisioned when he went up on the cross to simultaneously offer himself and to establish his Church through that sacrifice. This Church is the same one to which he revealed himself after his resurrection. This is the Church we can experience every time we go to Mass.

When all of our elect, our first communicants, and our confirmandi receive their Sacraments of Initiation at this time of year, what is waiting for them? It is not a prize of wealth or status. There are no material rewards for being brought into the Church. Their prize is the Body of Christ, manifest in two ways: Christ himself and the community of the Church. In fact, being brought into the Church may even come at a cost; certainly, the early Christians suffered greatly through persecution, torture, and death for their participation in this community. Today, active participation in the Church may bring public ridicule or something worse. We do it anyway because we are united together for something greater than ourselves. We cannot do this on our own. We need each other, because it is only us together that makes a “community” into the Church. When we gather for Mass, praying together with one accord, Jesus is not only in our midst - we become the Mystical Body of Christ.

Being followers of Christ empowers us to emulate him in our interactions with others. If we consider the history of Christianity, this becomes plain to see. Christianity began on the cross, and was fully realized three days later when Christ rose from the dead. However, he only spent an additional forty days on earth, not to merely continue what he had already been doing during his public ministry, but to strengthen his followers and instruct them on how to properly continue his work after his ascension. This is exactly what happened. The first twelve chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, which could also be considered the second part of Luke’s Gospel, follows the very beginning of this Church. It is obvious that Peter has taken the place of Christ as someone who can do miraculous things and who the others follow. But Peter never views his power as his own, or himself as a direct successor to Christ; rather, he always speaks of this power being from Christ, who even in his public ministry would always speak about doing the will of his Father.

Looking at the people who Christ chose and surrounding ourselves with people who have chosen Christ can give us a better understanding of who we are as human beings. God called weak and sinful people to leave their old lives behind them so that He could work through them to make them new. Their weaknesses continued to reveal themselves when they doubted, as we hear in the famous Gospel story of doubting Thomas, or when they feared what would happen to them, as we hear in this passage from Acts regarding those who were still too afraid to follow the Apostles. All of the people who gave themselves completely over to God, such as Peter, John, and Thomas, suffered and most eventually died due to their faithfulness. But if we look at those who follow Christ today, those who have not seen but still believe, we can see the work of the Apostles living on. Although doubt and fear may still creep in, Christians ultimately place their trust in their Lord and their God. If you are allowing doubt and fear to prevent you from chasing after God, see the hope in those who have. God works through them, and God wants to work through you, as well.

All of this is incorporated into the mercy of God that we as Christians place at the center of our lives practicing our faith. The most faithful Christians were only able to fully access their potential by being fully aware of the mercy of God. It was God’s mercy that He sent His only Son to die for us. It was through God’s mercy that Jesus instructed us on our behavior and our humanity. It is God’s mercy that we can leave a life of sin and death behind in order to live up to something more meaningful. The minute we begin to allow doubt and fear to take priority, we lose sight of God’s mercy. But this is the beauty of Christianity: with Mercy as the means by which we access God, it is open to us at any time to leave behind our doubt and leave behind our fear and open ourselves completely to God.

There are billions of Christians throughout the world today, which reveals just how strong the message of Christ could be to convert entire nations and cultures. As people who live and were raised in western societies, we have never known a world that has not been dominated by Christianity. Obviously, this was not always the case, especially when we consider the infancy of Christianity and the persecution that the early Christians faced. Now, as the world begins to turn away from organized religion, Christianity is facing a new obstacle that none of us have had to face in centuries - there is a very real possibility that we might face persecution for our faith. If we do encounter this, how would we respond? We would all like to assume that we would stand up for our beliefs and embrace persecution in the same way Christ did and the early Christians did, but there is no way of knowing unless it happens to us. And if we do face persecution and still stand up for our beliefs, would we do so with love and charity towards our persecutors?

This passage from Acts is a brilliant depiction of love in the face of persecution. After Christ ascended to heaven and they received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostles would spend their days in the Temple, preaching the Gospel to the Jews. This led to them being arrested by the Sadducees, persecuted for their faith in Christ. Being imprisoned is frightening, and it is meant to punish and deter you from doing whatever it was that led you to being arrested. If the faith of the Apostles was insincere or based in a desire for power and influence, as many people wrongly suggest in modern times, they would have never gone back to evangelizing to the people. But when they were miraculously freed from prison by an angel, they obeyed the angel by returning to the exact same spot where they were arrested, doing the exact same thing that caused them to be arrested. It could be a sign of madness that someone would return to the situation that led them to danger, but in the case of the Apostles, it was a sign of conviction in their faith and love for their enemies. They received no material or earthly gain by returning to the Temple. They only did so because they knew it was the Truth, and to share the Truth to the world was to invite them into participating in the Truth. This was and still is an act of love.

This also worked. The bravery of the Apostles is a valid piece of evidence that what they spoke about was something they truly experienced. Their miraculous escape was evidence of divine intervention. Their preaching of love and Truth was attractive and beautiful, and led to the conversion of many souls. Their message was the very same message of Christ. After describing the meeting between Nicodemus and Jesus, John writes in his Gospel an explanation of the Christian community’s reason for Christ coming to the world: God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal life. Sharing this message to the world is an act of love. Sharing this message even when we are faced with persecution or criticism of our beliefs is proof of our faith in Christ and evidence that it is the Truth.

The act of obedience can be a tricky virtue to handle. On the one hand, we are called by our moral convictions to remain obedient to those who have authority over us. On the other hand, authority can easily be abused by those in power, and obeying them could lead you into sin. Disobedience was the first sin committed by the first humans that led to our fall. God gave specific instructions that were not only in our best interest, but kept us under His authority. By intentionally and specifically going against the will of God, we brought sin into the world. We continue to do so by disobeying the Laws and morality laid out by God through His Church on earth. So if disobedience is at the heart of every single sin, when does it become necessary in order to maintain our own moral goodness?

This is the most difficult aspect of the moral life - if the first humans were disobedient because they attempted to be like gods, trying to attain for themselves the knowledge between good and evil, then we might become too afraid of being disobedient when our consciences tell us to in order to avoid falling into the trap of that first sin. While it is true that we do not have the power or the authority to define what is good and evil in our own eyes, we are called to show obedience to God first and foremost; in His divine authority, God has permitted others to be worthy of obedience as long as their authority can be united with the will of God. For example, Christ passed on his authority to Peter, who passed on his authority over the Church to his successors, which continues today. On matters of the Church (expressed in her unchanging doctrine), we can be assured that remaining obedient to the Church is remaining obedient to the will of God. When your conscience begins to call on you to be disobedient against others, you must truly reflect on what it is that you are disobeying and why you are disobeying it; if it is contrary to the authority of God, then “disobeying” it is actually obeying God. If you are disobeying someone with authority simply because you personally do not agree with them, there is a possibility that you are in error. 

Look at the Apostles in this passage: the Apostles were not disobeying the Sanhedrin, but were instead obeying God. The desire of the Sanhedrin, even though they had authority in other matters, led to a break between their orders and God’s orders, and God’s authority always trumps the authority of any human being. John’s instruction in the Gospel reveals just how important it is to always remain obedient to God. To disobey God, even if it means obeying others, is pure sin, and this disobedience will prevent us from eternal life. It is too stressful and too dangerous for your soul to be the one who defines morality and obedience for yourself; rather, trust in the authority of God, expressed in the Holy Spirit’s influence over Church teaching, to guide your conscience. Above all, obey God.

With so much ambiguity and lack of clarity when it comes to truth in the world today, it can be difficult to navigate through the endless amount of information available to us to discern what is true and what is false. Although having so much information available can be a gift and can lead anyone to the truth should they desire it, this has actually revealed to us that humans very rarely want to seek truth.  You would think that, given how much people tout science and reason as the driving forces of the world today, we would be naturally more curious and philosophical than we were in the past. In actuality, we have become more stubborn and close-minded, instead seeking out echo chambers and propaganda to conform the world to our desires. The Truth is actually much more powerful than our efforts to control it. St. Augustine once said, “you don’t have to defend the Truth. Let it loose. It will defend itself.”

We can scream and shout and enforce our opinions on the world, but if they are not true, they will die out. The truth will survive anything that humans try to throw at it. The truth cannot be confined or imprisoned. It spreads because that is its nature; this becomes all the more likely when there are those who defend the truth. The true Christian faith had an unlikely, but powerful defender in its earliest days. Gamaliel was a wise man, but he was also a Pharisee in the Sanhedrin. His role in the Sanhedrin was to live according to the law of God, but he was humble enough to recognize that the law of God will always conform to the truth; anything else is man trying to masquerade as divine. Not much is known about Gamaliel or his life, but he proposed the most logical and safe way to deal with the Apostles: let them preach. If they preach falsehoods, they will naturally die out, just as everyone else had who falsely claimed to be the true Messianic movement. If they speak the Truth, God will aid them in their survival. Clearly, the Truth won, and thanks to Gamaliel, God was able to spread the Truth through His disciples. If Gamaliel was wise enough to recognize this aspect of truth, perhaps he came to realize for himself the truth of Christianity at some point in his own life.

This is really affirmed by the model of the martyrs and the teachers of the Church. Martyrs are willing to die for the truth, and this courageous act leads to the truth spreading like wildfire. But it is not enough to merely suffer or die for the truth in order for others to know it; we must teach it and disseminate it, presenting it accurately so that the world might know it. Notice that in this passage, after the Apostles are flogged and released, they do not rejoice in their freedom; instead, they rejoice in having suffered for Christ and having the opportunity to continue sharing the Gospel. Expressed in their teaching and spreading of the Gospel, the Truth lived within them so profoundly that they willingly and greatly suffered for it. Like the Apostles and Gamaliel, we can’t be afraid of the Truth or its consequences. It is too powerful for us to ever try to control because it is a perfect reflection of God. Instead, conform yourself to it. Live according to the Truth, not your own desires.

The early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles should serve as a model for us when we look at the Church in the world today. Much of the structure that we are familiar with now was established immediately after Christ’s ascension into heaven. Many individuals who wish to start their own independent churches will often romanticize this era of Christianity and will even look to the Acts of the Apostles for inspiration on how to form their Church. There is something very alluring and wonderful about wishing to return to our roots, especially when the beginning of the Church seems so simple, focused exclusively on spreading the Gospel. In reality, though, what we find in those first moments of the Church was a very ordered structure being established early on, so that the Church could be oriented towards Christ with each member of the community serving their role. The best expression of the early days of the Church is actually found in the structure of the Catholic Church, with hierarchy and obedience.

The hierarchy of the Church came out of necessity. First, Christ chose Peter to succeed him as the visible head, and the Church was built upon his leadership. He was the first Pope. The Apostles considered Peter their leader, but also as one of their own, given that Christ chose the twelve of them alongside him. The Apostles had special faculties in the early Church and communities of believers built around them individually, while still maintaining obedience to Peter. They were the first Bishops. Christ also chose others to serve him beyond the twelve, and these special individuals played an important role in the practices of the faith, eventually becoming the first presbyters, or priests. Beyond that, there was still a lot that needed to be done for the community and for spreading the Gospel. We hear in the this passage that the gentiles felt neglected in the Christian communities compared to the Jews. To solve this, the twelve Apostles (the first bishops) used their authority to call together the disciples (the first priests) to establish a new group of helpers to help perform acts of charity for the community and to spread the word of God. They chose seven men for this role, and today we know these individuals as deacons.

In His infinite wisdom, God established a structured Church both out of necessity and so that we might learn theological truths from it. As individual members of the community, we need the Church for so much of our lives, but priests can only do so much. We should appreciate our deacons for all they do in order to serve the priest and to help him. Our community extends beyond the walls of the Church, though, which is why we need bishops to lead the priests in our area. Worldwide, the Church must remain faithful to the Holy Spirit, which is why it is necessary for all bishops to remain obedient to the Pope. This hierarchy certainly helps things run smoothly, but it is a model of Heaven itself. All of existence participates in an ontological hierarchy. There is so much beauty to it: being obedient to those above us teaches us humility, while being responsible for those below us teaches us how to love. Be grateful for your place in the Church, and listen to the Holy Spirit if you might be called to serve the community for a greater purpose.

The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most difficult mysteries to try to understand. The simple truth is that we will never be able to explain the Trinity perfectly, but we can understand the doctrine a little bit better by looking at the world around us. Without the Incarnation, even the slightest understanding of the Trinity is missed, but when God became man, He opened up the possibility for us to live according to this doctrine. The Gospel of John describes the second person of the Trinity as the Word, which became human in the person of Jesus Christ. That Word is spoken by the first person of the Trinity, God the Father. The breath that exudes from the mouth to make the Word present in our senses is the third person, the Holy Spirit.

In Christianity, we can experience all three persons. The Son is present to us in the Gospel and in the Eucharist, the Spirit is present to us in the inspiration of the faith (and likewise can work through us), and even the Father is present to us in our relationship with God. If the Father is the one who speaks according to the analogy of the Word, then anyone who testifies to the Gospel and who testifies to the Word under the influence of the Holy Spirit serves as the mouth of God. This does not make us divine, but instead allows us to participate in the proclamation of the Word, which is the most physical expression of God on earth. That being said, we cannot act as the mouth of God simply out of desire - we need to make sure that we are speaking the Word properly and that we are rightly inspired by the Holy Spirit in doing so. We simply cannot do this on our own; humans can only act as the mouth of God when they are speaking what God Himself says, not our own words. This means that the Gospels and the doctrines and dogmas of the Catholic Church are the Word that is perfectly spoken and truly inspired by the Holy Spirit. By speaking the Word, we can become the method by which God communicates to the world. We become the mouth of God.

When Stephen spoke in this passage from Acts, he was not speaking on his own behalf; rather, he was fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, which enabled God to speak through him. As a result, even Stephen’s countenance was seemingly heavenly. Likewise, one of the messages of Christ in the Gospel is to not focus on the miraculous works being done at the hand of a man, but to instead focus on the heavenly origin of those works. God is in control, not humans, when He chooses us to act as His mouth to the world. To be the mouth of God will not protect us from the dangers of this world; Stephen is well-known as the first martyr, yet whenever we read of him in Scripture, he seems so focused on the Word of God and the person of Jesus Christ that any bodily harm is insignificant compared to the grace of being the one to share a direct message from God to humanity. If you sincerely want to do God’s work, He will work through you. But this means that the work that is done through you will be His, not yours. Our responsibility is to proclaim the Word of God, and we must take care to express the Word as it truly is.

In the earliest days of the Church, the very true fact that all Christians believed, that God became man and took on human flesh, was actually the most hotly contested; it took centuries for the Church to weed out the numerous and popular heresies about this relationship between Christ’s divinity and humanity. Was he fully God or was he fully human? Was he given divine power by the Father or did he simply appear to be a human being? These heresies were such an issue because their adherents had a poor understanding of both the uniqueness of Christ among human beings, and the body/soul relationship in which all human beings participate. Jesus Christ was fully God, existing alongside the Father for all time and consubstantial with Him. He took on human flesh and was fully Man, one like us in all things but sin. Christ had a body and a spirit, just as we do; in fact, having both a body and a spirit is precisely what sets us apart as human beings in the ontological hierarchy. 

We know our bodies quite well as human beings because it is through our bodies and our bodily senses that we know the world around us. But it is our spirits and our spiritual senses that enable us to know God; these are senses that need to be trained, just as it is with our bodily senses. Perception is not merely seeing things or feeling things in a heightened manner, because it is also about utilizing the powers within our soul to recognize hidden details in the world around us. Through our bodies, we can easily become selfish when we focus on self-preservation or gratification. But when our souls are properly formed, our bodies will follow; the properly-formed soul reorients us to be selfless, to give up what our bodies might want for the sake of another. This is love. Miraculously, the truest form of love is the embodiment of expressing the human spirit. Our spirits were implanted within us at the moment of our creation so that we may reflect God’s divinity. Out of love, God took on what was uniquely human, namely a body, so that He could more intimately show that we are His most cherished creation. We took on a spirit, and He took on a body - we literally became one flesh with God, our Heavenly Bridegroom, through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Now that we are in the age of celebrating the Incarnation, we ought to take this time to consider how we might give back to God this perfect love that He expressed by lowering Himself to our world. We can do so through the Spirit, the resting place of love within the human person. St. Stephen was the first martyr and therefore the first individual given the opportunity to reciprocate Christ’s sacrificial love for his people. Consider Christ’s last words before his death on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Compare these last words to Stephen’s last words: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” This wasn’t a new message shared for the first time on the cross; it was a prayer recited and well-known by every faithful Jew from Psalm 31. In our relationship with God, when we are loving Him as we ought to do, we are giving back our spirit to Him, just as He gave His to us in the person of Christ, so that He may transform it and transform us to reflect His holiness and His glory through our entire being, both body and spirit. There is only one way to do this, which was done by the Father for His chosen people, Christ for his Church, and Stephen for his Lord: it is to love.

We use our senses to understand the world around us, but when we go about life in search of reality, we use much more. Our background, our upbringing, our wants and desires, our strengths and our weaknesses all play a role in our perception of reality; every conflict arises when two individuals or two parties disagree on reality. However, as Christians who live according to the natural rationality that God bestowed upon us at our creation, we absolutely reject that two realities such as these can exist at the same time; there is only one objective reality in accordance with the truth, and it usually lies somewhere in the middle between two conflicting worldviews. To be ardent defenders of the truth - that there is only one reality - does not seem to resolve conflict; yet, in history, Christianity was the arbiter of world peace and the first real power structure that transcended conflict as a means to gain power.

As people who live in a world deeply influenced by the Christian worldview, we falsely assume that the solidarity that we know we are capable of as global humans is something that we are naturally predisposed to prefer. In reality, working together as human beings for a common goal (our survival and our thriving as a global community) only arose because of Christianity. How was this possible? The answer is simple - Christianity taught the fullness of Truth. For much of our existence before Christ, all humans either had a fraction of the Truth or no knowledge of the Truth at all, which we cannot blame them for (Peter certainly doesn’t blame anyone when he speaks of this in the book of Acts). However, if there’s no such thing as truth, it is impossible to recognize what is reality. When you can’t recognize reality, the only thing that matters is power. In Christianity, the Church did not need raw power or military might to change the world; all it needed was the truth, which made the ardent followers of Christ peaceful, but fierce defenders of that Truth. Look at Stephen in this passage from Acts. He had absolutely no power in his predicament in front of the authority figures of his community, and still he chooses to unapologetically and fiercely tell each one of them the truth. The authorities did what everyone did in those days and what everyone does in the modern age when truth is irrelevant - they had him killed. But if Christianity is the Truth, then that means Christ is not only in accordance with what is true, but that he is Truth itself. And he didn’t need power to change the world.

Within four hundred years, Christianity dominated the western world, and the western world came to dominate the entire globe up until the past few hundred years. This was only really possible due to the tireless evangelization of one "young man" described in this passage - Paul. Paul never knew Christ personally. Instead, he knew his followers. As a member of that pre-Christian world that thrived off of power, Paul (who was then known as Saul) was a defender of his own reality, his own upbringing, and his own wants and desires whenever he persecuted those Christians. We are told that he was present and consented to the killing of Stephen, the first martyr of the faith. Witnesses to Stephen’s speech inspired by the Holy Spirit testified to Saul. Power does not convince someone of reality though, it merely overshadows reality. The Truth that Stephen professed slowly chipped away at Saul’s hardened heart so that, when the Truth revealed itself fully to him, he would dramatically conform himself to it. There is only one way to find peace and commonality with our neighbors for a better future - each one of us must conform ourselves entirely to the one and only objective Truth. Christ is that Truth. 

Throughout Scripture, there is a constant pattern of behavior that can be found among the faithful. From the time of Adam and Eve up to the groups described in the book of Revelation, the “faithful” come into union with God, relapse into sin, incur punishment and seek repentance, and are finally brought back into union with God. This happens over and over, again and again. It does not matter if it is one of the first Israelites, a faithful and practicing Jew, or a believing Christian - everyone in Salvation History seems to go through this cycle. In fact, this is indicative of the human individual; every time we sin, we separate ourselves from God. He will always take us back if we seek forgiveness, but this cycle is all too common in our lives, and we must undergo a constant battle to rid ourselves of the pain of these relapses.

Catholics are not immune to this problem. Because the individuals within the Church make up the Mystical Body of Christ, our individual actions play a role in the health and well-being of our Church. We can look to St. Paul’s beautiful metaphor of a body made up of many parts. Since there are over a billion of us in the Catholic Church, this body is made up of over a billion parts; if one of these parts is behaving unhealthily, it may not critically damage the entire body. But if a majority of the individual parts within a body behave in such a way that harms the body, then clearly the body will be critically damaged. Our individual actions clearly play a role in the health of this body. Fortunately, God has promised that even if the Mystical Body of Christ is weakened to a critical point, it will never perish. We know this because Christ himself was weakened and damaged to a critical point, even to the point of death, yet he rose from the dead, triumphant over sin. We cannot lie to ourselves and assume that the Church will always remain strong simply because it will never die; just as we see throughout Scripture, the Church may come to a point when it is seemingly damaged beyond repair.

This passage from Acts reveals what this actually means. The Church immediately after Christ’s ascension was already small, but because of the intense persecution faced by these Christians, they scattered and fled, leaving only the twelve Apostles to rebuild the weakened body. The strength of the Apostles more than made up for the weaknesses of the others - the intensity of their love for Christ was far more powerful than mere numbers of followers. Eventually, it was this intensity that led to Christianity’s greatest growth: St. Paul was one of these persecutors, yet because of the work of the Apostles at this time, the Church survived and Paul eventually converted and spread the Gospel throughout the world. The Church may become small and fragile in the future. Followers may leave and flee because of the persecution of the world. But if we maintain the intensity of love that the Apostles did when they went through this experience, we will always keep the Mystical Body of Christ alive. 

When we gather together as a church community, we must understand that our time spent together is not merely about socializing. We are meant to strengthen each other, learn from each other, and express our love for each other. This cannot be done if we only limit our time in community to the beginning and ending of Mass; Mass is meant to be a starting point for our Christian life. We should make Mass the focus of our faith life, then grow in the social cohesion of our parish and the Church, and then be strengthened to take it out into the world around us. This can only be possible if we are active with our fellow Catholics. While socializing and praying with our neighbors should be our top priority for living within a church community, we must also prioritize learning about our faith. Eventually, we are called to go out into the world, and we need to be prepared and trained in order to properly evangelize to those who do not know Catholicism.

Philip, who is a surprisingly active figure in both the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, certainly plays a significant role in the foundational stories of the Church, but he simply is not remembered in the way Peter or John or James the Greater are. However, this is indicative of the nature of Philip; his place in Scripture is centered on his humility, not his need to be the wisest Apostle or the most spiritual or holy. Philip is the Apostle who best represents God working through a humble and otherwise insignificant man who is himself glorified because of his role as an instrument of God. In this passage from Acts, Philip specifically is the one doing the work of God. He is the one who is driven by the Spirit towards Gaza. He is the one who approaches the Ethiopian eunuch for no other reason than because he felt called to do so. He is the one who revealed Jesus Christ to the eunuch through instruction of the Scripture. He is the one who baptized the Eunuch. He is the one who mysteriously vanishes after the baptism. By any metric, a witness to this story would look at Philip and might consider that he has magical or divine powers. Some might even say that these signs and wonders are indicative of a messianic nature. But Philip was not the one who did any of this. Rather, God worked through Philip’s humanity to perform His works.

This is better understood in reading from the Bread of Life discourse in chapter 6 of the Gospel of John. This detailed instruction on the Eucharist from Christ was initiated by the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, which was initiated by Philip himself approaching Christ to tell him that there was not enough food to feed the crowds. This instruction is the culmination of Christ’s public ministry; it encapsulates all the instruction we need to know about who he is. But in order for this teaching to be properly understood and to be built upon, we need that instruction to continue. This happens through us within the Church today. God instructed the eunuch through Philip. Christ revealed his sacrificial identity through Philip’s initial approach about the food. God continues to work through us in the Church to build each other up, to instruct each other, and to learn from each other. But we are not the ones who are instructing. We are merely the instruments of God to instruct the world.

There is probably no story of conversion more famous than that of St. Paul. Originally a well-educated Jew intent on the laws of his faith, Saul had an experience with the divine on his way to Damascus from Jerusalem to capture and bring back members of the new Christian movement. He became well known throughout the early Christian community, traveling throughout the Roman Empire, teaching and converting pagans to the faith, establishing church communities in different cities, and going to his death in the city of Rome. The once-devout and strictly legalistic follower of Judaic law became the means by which so many pagans and gentiles learned about Christ and the Judeo-Christian God. This is represented in his name change, from Saul (of Hebrew origin) to Paul (of Greek origin).

Along with Saint Peter, Paul is considered one of the main messengers of Christianity. Whereas Peter represented the authority of the Gospel passed on by Christ, Paul represented the other crucial aspect of the Church: evangelization and ministry. Paul travelled extensively and was truly the architect of Christianity’s flourishing throughout the known world. The question that many ask though is how was Paul so effective in his ministry? If we were to go out and try to do what Paul did to communities that do not know Christ or have abandoned him, would we be just as effective? There are really two reasons why Paul was able to help the Church grow so much, and neither of them had to do with the way he spoke or his personal knowledge of Jesus. First, the fact that he went from actively persecuting Christianity to being its biggest defender spoke volumes to the masses regarding the authenticity of Paul’s convictions. Second, he had a true divine experience with Jesus Christ that instilled a belief in the truth of Christianity without any room for doubt.

These two reasons that made Paul such an effective evangelist are also ways in which we can try to be just as effective as him in our ministry to the world. Paul did not just accept Christianity secretly to avoid persecution. He did not personally find it to be true while publicly saving his reputation; anyone who believes one thing and does another for the sake of self-preservation weakens their deeply held belief. Paul let his life be proof of how much he truly believed what he taught, and this is highly effective when trying to persuade others to accept the truth. He also took a very personal moment with Christ in his presence and used that as the catalyst to spread the Gospel. We have a personal moment in the presence of Christ every time we encounter the Eucharist. If our belief in the Real Presence as Catholics is strong enough, we will recognize Christ’s presence, and use that to motivate us in sharing Christ with the world, just like Paul did.

There are two figures in Christianity who were the pillars of its flourishing. St. Peter provided a foundational structure and an unmoving authority to which all Christians could go and find the divinely inspired Truth. Without Peter, the individual churches would be more likely to evolve into their own independent communities with their own evolved beliefs. However, there were so many individual communities and churches throughout the world because of the work of St. Paul, who traveled constantly to spread the Gospel effectively. Paul spread the Word while Peter affirmed the Word. Through these two men, the Church grew but was still able to remain consistent and unified. They both met their deaths in the city of Rome under the Emperor Nero. 

This passage from Acts marks the transition in Luke’s story of the early Church from a focus on the community led by Peter to the evangelization efforts of Paul. These two men are quite different on the surface, but share vital similarities: Although Peter was a local fisherman from Galilee and Paul was a well-trained Pharisee based in Jerusalem, the two of them were active in their Jewish culture. Although Peter was a follower of Christ early on and Paul was once a persecutor of the Christians, both were called to leave their former lives for the sake of Christ. Although Peter was a rather stationary authority figure within the early Church and Paul was a traveling evangelist, both were representative of the two aspects of Christian life: obedience to authority and a call to evangelization. Most importantly, they were both chosen instruments of Christ to establish his Church throughout the world. Christianity would look vastly different and remarkably incomplete without these two men. If Paul’s work was never done, Christianity would be insular, small, and unchecked. Paul’s evangelization enabled the gentile world to come to know Christ and to be open to his message, and Paul was also active in correcting and maintaining correspondence with the individual communities he founded. But without Peter, there would be no singular authority and no final voice on matters pertaining to theology. Peter was authentically chosen by Christ to lead his Church, so his authority was always guided and influenced by the Holy Spirit. Without it, the Church would have crumbled from the disagreements and heresy that have consistently arisen in our history.

Peter and Paul were uniquely chosen instruments of Christ. But it is imperative that we look at their stories and see ourselves in them. Peter was a faithful follower and never needed convincing, but he did need motivation from Christ to reach his full potential. Paul actively rejected Christ and his Church, but experienced metanoia (a complete conversion of the heart) that led to him being a crucial voice for Christ. As Christians, we come from different backgrounds and upbringings. Some of us were raised in the faith, and some of us are converts. But as Catholics, we must understand that we are all chosen instruments of Christ. By being obedient to our authority and assuming the responsibility of evangelization, we can model ourselves after both Peter and Paul. As these two great men teach us, our pasts will not define us if our presents and our futures are oriented towards doing the work of Christ as his instruments.

Our role in the Church is to model ourselves as perfectly after Christ as we can. Naturally, because of our sin and our limits as human beings, we will always fall short unless we work according to the will of Christ. The moment we in the Church begin to try to make her reflect our own wills and our own desires, we will immediately begin to suffer. There is no one who models the role of follower better than Peter, our first Pope, which ultimately makes him the perfect leader for the Church and the perfect example for all his successors. Once a weak and indecisive man, Peter immediately became capable of the same power of Christ the moment he set aside his own desires in order to work for the will of Christ. Most importantly, Peter continued to work as an instrument of Christ until his death, and the Acts of the Apostles is a great example of this.

This passage from Acts gives a phenomenally powerful blueprint for making the Church reflect the will of Christ by uniting it to both the Gospel and the Old Testament. The first detail we hear in the passage is that the Church was experiencing a period of peace, which allowed her to build up and walk in the fear of the Lord. There’s actually an explanation here: the Church was able to be built up because her members walked in the fear of the Lord. They could have easily seen their growth as a result of their individual efforts, but Peter reveals to us that they held an ever-present recognition that they were being guided by Christ, which is revealed the moment he heals Aeneas, and says “Jesus Christ heals you.” It is not Peter at work here. But this passage culminates in a story that unites the Church to the Gospel and to the Old Testament. A faithful woman from the Aramaic-speaking town of Joppa has died, and Peter goes to her house. Her name is strikingly profound - Tabitha, although Luke feels it is necessary to give a Greek translation, emphasizing that her name reveals something. In Greek, it is Dorcas, which can be translated to “Gazelle.” The Aramaic name Tabitha sounds like the Aramaic word Talitha, meaning “little girl”. When Jesus brought Jairus’ daughter back to life, we hear one of the few phrases in Aramaic in the Gospels: “Talitha, koum!” meaning, “Little girl, arise!” In this scene, Peter says, “Tabitha, koum!” 

The slight distinction between Talitha and Tabitha reveals two things: first, Peter is not Christ, but more importantly, this disciple is not a little girl. She is a grown woman, and her name means “Gazelle”. For anyone who is familiar with Scripture, a gazelle should call to mind the Old Testament book the Song of Songs, romantic literature that reveals the nature of man’s relationship with God. Gazelles are mentioned frequently in this book, but always as a reference to the beloved. As Christ’s beloved and as members of his bride, the Church, we stand with Peter as participants in a new life; with Peter as our head acting in the person of Christ, our Holy Mother Church is no longer the “little girl,” or the Talitha. Our Holy Mother Church is now represented in this moment by the grown woman Tabitha, the “gazelle,” the beloved, with our Holy Father reinvigorating her into life. He can only do so, though, if he works exclusively according to the will of Christ.

Peter and Paul are the most important figures in the formation of the Catholic Church and both lived the epitome of saintly life. However, these two were clearly flawed individuals from what we know about them. Peter was uniquely chosen by Jesus despite constantly making mistakes throughout Christ’s public ministry. On top of that, he abandoned Jesus in his time of most need. Paul never encountered Jesus during his public ministry, but as an ardent Pharisee, he persecuted Jesus’ followers until his conversion.

If these were the only details we knew about Peter and Paul, we would hardly consider them models of faith, and we certainly would not revere them to the extent that we do. But this is the crux of Christianity - we are all sinners, but sin is forgiven by God through authentic metanoia, a complete conversion of the heart. We acknowledge Peter’s and Paul’s shortcomings because we acknowledge their human nature and can relate to it, but we focus on their mission. Both of them experienced metanoia, and were willing to be put to death to testify to the Truth, the very thing that Peter once ran away from and Paul once attempted to stifle. Both of these men died well.

This goes along with what we have focused on the past few days. Being a saint requires us to forego the conveniences and distractions of this life precisely so that our focus is entirely on God. This often requires sacrifice. It sometimes means we have to deny ourselves a life of ease, and it might mean we die in unfortunate circumstances, like Peter and Paul. But when we dedicate ourselves to the saintly life, we can be sure that we will die well.

Those who are passionate about the Catholic faith most likely are also passionate about the expression of faith. Within the Church, that comes in many forms, and it always has. Today, there are Catholics who focus on service to the poor and vulnerable, while others focus on building the immense riches of Catholic spirituality, prayer, and liturgy. In the past, those who wished to dedicate their lives to the faith would choose between being a mendicant and going out to the world or being monastic and focusing on contemplation. In its earliest days, the Church consisted of those who actively evangelized and those who cared for the local community of believers. 

This diversity of expression is not only acceptable to us as Catholics, it is necessary. We need Catholics to be going out to the world and expressing the charity and love that flows from our faith. We also need Catholics who study and reflect on the doctrines of the Church so that all within the Church may remain faithful and knowledgeable of her teachings. This raises a question about what constitutes something that should be expressed by all Catholics versus those things that allow difference in expression. There are two sins that arise from improperly exercising your expression of faith: you may focus on those teachings of the Church that are required to be accepted by all Catholics, but wrongly demand obedience also to those things that are not required to be accepted by all Catholics. On the other hand, you may look at those things that allow freedom of expression in the faith and begin to apply this freedom of choice to those things that are firmly and infallibly taught by the Church.  We must avoid both of these sins. If we could use an analogy, it is like choosing a job. Doctors are necessary to the flourishing of a society, but just because they are one of the necessary jobs in an economy does not mean that everyone should be a doctor. On the other hand, people picking and choosing whatever job they want is not always beneficial, considering that there are many jobs that are necessary though not exactly appealing. For a functioning society, we need every necessary job to be done by those willing to do them. 

The same can be said of the Church. We need those focused on serving the poor and the needy to live out the charism of Charity. We need those focused on the intellectual side of the faith to live out the charism of Truth and Reason. We need those focused on the artistic and aesthetic aspects of the expression of Catholicism to live out the charism of Beauty. We should look to this passage from Acts to understand this: there were five prophets and teachers in the Church of Antioch, but God called only two of them to leave this community in order to spread the Gospel to other places. The other three who stayed were not insignificant to the flourishing of the Church; they were necessary for the community to continue learning about the faith according to their authority given by God. God is calling you to serve the Church according to your abilities. Do not demand, then, that the Church as a whole should reflect you as an individual. Instead, appreciate the gifts God instilled in you to serve the Church, and appreciate those who give back to the Church in ways that you cannot.

God does not only work in mysterious ways; He also works through unexpected people. Consider yourself as a Catholic: you may consider yourself to be insignificant to the grand scheme of things, a mere participant in the function of the society in which you live. You might not be famous or powerful or wealthy. You might not be popular with those you encounter, and you might not even be very skilled in very many things. But for whatever reason, God decided to open your heart specifically to be receptive to His word so that you might live it out in your own words and deeds. You are a Catholic. You are an instrumental and necessary part of His plan for the salvation of humanity, which began with Christ’s death on the cross, was fully realized in his resurrection, and continues today in the work of the Church. 

God chose you. He chose you despite your insecurities and your weaknesses. We often look at the figures of Scripture and see great and powerful individuals who we could never live up to. But these figures were just as insecure and just as flawed as you are, even after their calling. Think of Peter, who occupied the most powerful and solemn office on earth; his entire life was marked by mistakes and weakness, but he made sure to always carry out the wishes of his master. Think of Paul, who was one of the most vicious persecutors of the first Christians; he accepted his miraculous calling rather than reverting to the comfort and familiarity of his previous life. Perhaps most importantly, think of King David, who is often considered one of the greatest figures in all of Judaism; he was a murderer, an adulterer, and a habitual sinner. But he is also considered the ideal king, and because of his goodness, the Messiah came into the world through him. While these figures were weak throughout their lives (just as we are), they were especially loved and utilized by God for a single reason, which we hear quoted in this passage: they were men after God’s own heart because, despite all of their limitations and errors, they carried out His every wish. This is why God chose you to follow Him. He calls everyone, but you answered. Your answer to His call was not a fluke or a coincidence; your heart was guided by the innate desire to carry out His every wish. You may stumble and make mistakes, but this is what guides you daily to follow Him.

Not everyone in the world has answered God’s calling of their name. It is our job, then, to serve as a megaphone for God in our words and our actions. By loving our neighbors who have not answered God’s call yet, by serving them, and most importantly by praying for the softening of their hearts and the opening of their minds, we are carrying out God’s deepest desire - that all of His creation know Him, love Him, and serve Him. Some will listen, but others won’t. Take courage, though, that those who accept your message will accept God. God called you and chose you because you were one after His own heart. Now, go after the hearts of those who have not yet seen the goodness God brings to His creation.

As so many in the world wander through life seeking meaning, we in the Church firmly believe that we hold the truth regarding the capacity of human potential. Everything we were designed for and everything we can put our minds to are obtainable only through the power of God. Without God, we are powerless and we are only capable of any self-motivated success simply because He permits it. Unfortunately, we have allowed the tremendous gifts that humanity has been given by God to be the root cause of our tendency to sin; with any form or measure of power comes with it an applied value of our own selves - in other words, the more power we have, the easier it is to falsely assume that it is because of our individual importance and value. Clearly, this can only lead to an inflated ego, a life of sinful pride, and damage to our souls.

However, if we consider our gifts and power as they truly are, as gifts from God, we are capable of things beyond even our own control. Paul and Barnabas were traveling through a pagan city with little to no influence from Judaism. Paul heals a man, and immediately the citizens begin to believe that their pagan gods have taken on the form of men, so they call Barnabas “Zeus” and Paul “Hermes”. There is a great irony here: unbeknownst to the pagans who witnessed this miracle, the Divine had actually taken on the form of humanity. However, it was not their gods nor was it the men who stood before them. It was the One True God who took the form of Jesus Christ and empowered Paul and Barnabas to heal and perform miracles in his name. We might look at the pagans and think how foolish they were to believe that Zeus and Hermes became men, but there is actually an incredibly valuable lesson to this story. After they attributed the miracle to Paul and Barnabas, it was then that Paul told them that it was not their power, but the power of Christ using them as mere instruments of God’s will. It is one thing for us to talk about the Gospel to other people; it is a totally different and far more powerful method to first act exactly as Jesus did, as he calls us to do, before sharing his message. It also affirms his message in a much stronger way.

Still, the pagans did not listen to Paul and Barnabas. They continued to offer sacrifices to them. If you are a holy and virtuous person because of your faith, this won’t automatically motivate irreligious and atheistic people to adopt your set of beliefs. Still, if you claim that your virtue, talents, or abilities come from you and you alone, you completely shut the door to the possibility of anyone striving to be like you. In Christ, we have a perfect model that everyone can work towards. This is what makes Christ’s message so impactful and why it will occasionally lead some to conversion: things that originate in the individual cannot be shared, but things that originate from outside of us (in this case, God) can be shared. There is true power and persuasiveness in showing others that your gifts and talents do not originate in you, but from God. Maybe someone will look at you and tell themselves that if they open themselves, God will bestow those same graces on them. This will always lead to conversion.

In order for us to properly undergo the Christian life, we must constantly remember Christ as the true vine, as we hear in the Gospel. We are merely branches that extend from the true vine; it is only through Christ that we can survive and produce good fruits. This understanding is also necessary when we look at the teachings of the Catholic Church. Everything that exists in the Church must always be seen as an extension of the Gospel, both in the words and the actions of Christ. Still, there are plenty of examples in our history when individuals within the Church attempted to promote their own world-views or desires on the divinely-inspired Church. However, the Church has always been protected by the Holy Spirit from allowing these things from spreading.

How do we know if our implementations within the Church are being done in accordance with the will of God or if they are just our own human desires? This passage from Acts provides an interesting example of the work of the Holy Spirit within the Church. Due to the influx of Gentiles to the number of followers of the early Christian Church, the community debated whether or not they needed to undergo the rituals that were necessary to Judaism, especially circumcision. After all, Christianity was Jewish at its core. The leaders of the community gathered together and debated the issue. This was the first, albeit unofficial, council of the Church, later known as the Council of Jerusalem. Peter, as head of the entire Church, was the first to speak out, claiming that the Holy Spirit (the same Divine Person who acts within the Church) had fallen upon the new gentile converts. James, as bishop of Jerusalem, reiterated the message of Peter to his local Church community; in their offices of authority that were granted to them by Christ himself, along with a rational defense of their position, Peter and James declared the divinely inspired shift in lawful practices. Interestingly, Paul and Barnabas, who were most active among the gentiles, are not quoted despite them speaking during the Council. This is because they did not have the authority to solemnly decree how the Church would respond, although Peter and James did. This is how the Church maintains faithful obedience to the true vine: not by following popular demand or appeals to emotion, but through Ecumenical Councils, ex cathedra declarations, and proper appeals to authority. In this way, the Church can be assured that our laws and teachings are in accordance with the will of God.

On the other hand, we must be careful to identify those things that come from an individual human will rather than the will of God. The Church can adopt disciplines, guidelines, and recommendations that are set forth by our authority, but these things can change. When it comes to our very core teachings and laws, these are from God and cannot be changed, regardless of the attempts by human beings. Above all, our faith in Christ’s words, that the gates of hell shall never prevail against our Church, should assure us that we will never wrongfully adopt a man-made law or opinion as a divinely inspired teaching. The True Law comes from God. As long as we remain attached to the true vine, we can be assured that the Church remains faithful to the will of God.

When the early Church came to the decision to open the community up to the gentiles without them taking on the Old Law, the news of this was embraced with joy and delight by those in Antioch. However, there were elements of the Old Law that still applied to them, namely abstaining from meat sacrificed to idols, blood, meat from strangled animals, and unlawful marriage. These were the laws against things that were especially scandalous to the Jews, of which most Christians still considered themselves. Regarding the laws pertaining to food, food was something holy that united gifts from God with the work of humans. To eat what had been profaned by giving to idols profaned the person who consumed it. Regarding blood, Jews believed the life of an animal was contained in the blood. Out of respect for the animal as a gift from God, they still refrained from eating the blood and eating meat from animals killed improperly. Regarding marriage, the union between two believers was supremely holy. These laws were still expected to be followed by gentile converts.

We might improperly view the Council of Jerusalem as a rejection of the rigidity of the Old Law. Rather, the Old Law was not completely abolished, as the gentile converts were still required to follow some of the restrictions. Interestingly, the reason why they were expected to follow these specific laws was because of the scandal that would arise among the Jewish Christians had they been completely done away with. If we look at these laws today, we might consume blood or not think about the manner in which the animal whose meat we are eating was killed. However, things like unlawful marriage and participation in idolatry remain forbidden to us. The Old Law was not a list of arbitrary restrictions that deserved to be done away with; they were manners of living that were necessary for the Jews - some were fundamental to their worship of God, and some were merely disciplinary. Think of how we might want to change the disciplinary practices within the Church today; to merely do away with it would cause immediate scandal among those who value them. However, those laws in the Church that are fundamental to our worship of God may never be done away with. At the heart of the Council of Jerusalem was a desire to open the Church to the rest of the world while at the same time remaining charitable to those who still saw themselves as Jewish.

There are plenty of disagreements within the Church today about how it should be run, how we should practice the faith in our daily life, or what constitutes fundamental practices versus disciplinary practices. We should look at the Acts of the Apostles, especially the Council of Jerusalem, as a guide to how these problems should be solved in the Church. Through his sacrifice, Christ initiated an opportunity for a renewal among God’s people, but this change could be implemented gradually if it was not fundamental to the worship of God. We must not look at each other as factions within the Church who must force obedience to our desires upon others; rather, we should model ourselves after the early Church, grow in our understanding of the New and Everlasting Covenant, and above all, be charitable but clear to those who are most affected by our decisions.

Believing in the message of the Gospel and trusting in the truth of Jesus’ words evokes an incredibly freeing and hopeful feeling. If we are correct in trusting Christ, we have the opportunity to turn away from sin and to turn back to our Creator. Although the Christian life is demanding, its reward is the very essence of what our nature desires; any hard work or sacrifices that are necessary in order to receive the grace of being in the presence of God will be worth it. This still raises the issue that so many, especially in the modern world, do not believe or have actively rejected the Gospel. What keeps us from fully trusting in Christ? What kept others from accepting him during his time on earth? How can we be assured that we believe in what is true?

The first hurdle to acknowledging the validity of the Gospel message is also the easiest to overcome: there was a historical man named Jesus Christ and his influence led to the transformation of the known world. Acknowledging that Christ actually existed is virtually impossible to deny, and no historian taken seriously would dare to argue the opposite. But the issue we must address is whether or not the story we receive from the Gospels was the true story of this historical figure. Pope Benedict XVI was very clear about this in his writings and his research - the Jesus of history is the Jesus we find in the Gospels. Some arguments against the historicity of the Gospels point to the time in which they were written, long after the life of Christ. But in this passage, there is an incredibly important word included in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the story of the first generation of Christians: “we”. Acts was written by Luke, a disciple of Paul who also wrote the Gospel named after him. He is not telling us a story that was passed on to him; by using the word “we” in those scenes in which he includes himself, we can be certain that the information included in these books are as trustworthy, authentic, and chronologically close as they could possibly be. By accepting the Gospel and accepting the story of the early Church, we do not have to sacrifice history for faith. In fact, they are quite harmonious.

Still, even if we are thoroughly convinced in the historicity of the Gospels, the rational arguments for the person of Christ, and the implausibility of other theories like atheism, there is a much greater hurdle that we must overcome in order to accept the message of Christ: ourselves and our own desires. There has always been people who, by persecuting Christians and Catholics in particular, believed that they were doing God’s work. Today, there are people who reject Christianity in the name of “science”, “morality”, or anything else who believe that they are following basic human reason. Ultimately, a rejection of Christ is caused by a deeper desire to follow oneself and to adhere to one’s own world-views. We can have all the evidence for the authenticity of Christ in the world, but we must ultimately allow our hearts to be open in order to become a true follower. Don’t expect the Truth of the world to conform to who you already are. Instead, conform yourself to the Truth in everything you do.

As followers of Christ, it is our duty to speak the Gospel to the world first and foremost through our actions. We can believe, instruct, and proclaim whatever words we desire, but without actually living out our faith through what we do, we cannot seriously consider ourselves true believers. So what does it look like to be most effective in living out one’s faith? This isn’t an easy question to answer, nor should it be. The reality is that we have no idea what it takes to convince someone to follow Christ. Only God knows, and only God can lead someone to believe. Quite simply, there is no amount of convincing you could do to bring about the conversion of others on your own. This is why it is so crucial to us to heed the words of Christ by asking for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in those moments when we need to be witnesses to the faith.

The intellect of the Spirit is not like our own, which is evident in this passage from Acts. After being beaten and imprisoned, Paul and Silas still prayed and sang hymns to God. The fortitude to glorify God in such a frightening and difficult moment is indicative of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the two disciples already. Miraculously, Paul and Silas’ prayers and hymns caused an earthquake that enabled every prisoner to flee from the confines of the jail. In our human reason and intellect, we might see this as a sign that God has freed us. But Paul and Silas were still under the guidance of the Holy Spirit who inspired them to remain in their cells. We find out exactly why the Holy Spirit inspired this specific action: had the prisoners, including Paul and Silas, escaped the jail, the jailer would have been responsible and put to death. Instead, Paul and Silas calmed the man by showing that they were still there. The purpose for this moment was not the freedom of Paul and Silas; Paul and Silas rejoiced in suffering for the sake of Christ and would have gladly gone to their deaths for him here. Rather, the purpose was to grow the kingdom through the conversion of the jailer. This would have never happened had Paul and Silas followed their human wills and escaped. However, the miracle of the earthquake and the testament of the disciples led the man to accept Christ and to turn his despair into faith.

We will encounter difficult moments in our own faith journeys just like Paul and Silas. If for one second we wrongly assume that we have the power within ourselves to bear the burden of persecution, we will crumble under the pressure of the world. If, however, we rely on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to guide our actions at every moment, we will exude all seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially fortitude. Christ tells us that the Holy Spirit descends upon the world and reveals three things: we have enslaved ourselves to sin, but the “righteousness” of Christ has freed us, and we incur condemnation on ourselves if we choose to remain in sin. The jailer freed Paul and Silas only because of the work of the Holy Spirit, who produced conversion and grace. If you want to help free the world from imprisonment of sin, you must operate according to the Holy Spirit. 

There are two elements to being a faithful practicing Catholic: the first is a solid understanding of exactly what you believe, and the second is an effective way of authentically living out those beliefs in your daily life. If there is anyone who cites the misbehavior or unkindness of Catholics as a reason why they would never join our faith, we must take this criticism seriously and find its root cause. Some Catholics might seem outwardly charitable but could lead others into error if they do not have a proper understanding of Catholic theology. On the other hand, all the knowledge in the world of Catholic teaching is rendered pointless if a Catholic cannot live out their faith. True love and charity is based in knowing the Truth, and true knowledge of the faith is based in living a life modeled after Christ. As a Church, we must constantly reinforce the need for both elements among the faithful.

All of this being said, some Catholics may feel that they are stronger in the theological and intellectual sense, while others may feel that they are stronger in the spiritual and functional sense. This is actually a tremendous benefit to the Church because it allows different Catholics to learn from each other to grow in their faith. A great example of this is found in this passage from Acts. Apollos was a Jew from Alexandria, which tells us two things: he did not live around the Christians in Judea to learn from their actions, and he must have been extremely intelligent considering he came from the academic center of the world in Alexandria. We are told in the passage that he was an authority on the Scriptures. For Apollos, all he needed was to be told the details of the story of Christ in order to accept Christianity; if he had a true mastery of the Scriptures, to accept Christ as the Messiah would be the next logical step. Apollos was an expert in the theological and intellectual element, but without a basis in actually living a life of Christ, he could not move forward as a Christian. It took two humble members of the Church, Priscilla and Aquila, to instruct him on how to be a Christian. They would never be able to teach Apollos something he did not know about the Scriptures, but they were able to show him how to implement the message of Christ in his behavior. Apollos remained a successful apologist focused on the theological element of Christianity, but his work was only fortified and affirmed by the instruction he received from Priscilla and Aquila on actually being a Christian.

As a Catholic, you probably fall into one of these two categories: you are either more edified by studying the rational arguments of the Church or more edified by being an example of the Christian faith to others in your charity and your works. One is not better than the other, but neither are effective without the other. If you need to learn more about what the Church teaches, learn from those who know. If you need to learn to be more charitable and giving in your behavior, model yourself and work with those who have mastered this way of life. It should be the goal of all Christians to be firm in our beliefs and to defend them logically at all times, while at the same time using our knowledge to influence our treatment towards others. This is the full expression of our faith.

The Trinity is the foundational doctrine that unites all Christians. Interestingly, the doctrine is never expressed explicitly in Scripture, so how did it come about and why is it necessary for us to believe as Christians? By first looking at the Old Testament, there is very clearly an active and all-powerful God who establishes a relationship with the Israelites in the same way a father would accept his own children. In the New Testament, the person of Jesus Christ is eventually understood to be God Himself as a human being. However, Jesus speaks in a very unique way about God: He is clearly the Son of the Heavenly Father, but he also mentions that he and the Father are one. Scripturally, we now have evidence that there are two persons in one God. 

But Jesus also speaks frequently about the Spirit. In fact, the Spirit is spoken of even in the Old Testament. The Spirit seems to share in the same divinity as God the Father and God the Son, but His role is just as unique in relation to humanity. The Spirit is the ever-present and ever-inspiring presence of God in the affairs of humans when we allow God to work through us. The Father always remained in Heaven and the Son ascended into Heaven after his mission on earth was done. What remains of God with us interiorly is the Holy Spirit. Our ability to experience Christ physically in the Eucharist is because of the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the one who unites humanity with the Trinity, and who solidifies our faith in the Trinity. Still, we don’t seem to focus on the Spirit as much as we do the other two Persons. When Paul was in Ephesus, he encountered a few disciples who also did not know much about the Spirit; in fact, they had never heard of the Spirit before. When Paul asked them if they were baptized, they said they were by John the Baptist. But John never baptized in the Spirit; John only baptized in water as an act of repentance. To be given a valid baptism was to be baptized in the name of Christ. However, a Christian is not ready to go out into the world until they receive the Holy Spirit. Because of this, Paul also confers what we understand as the sacrament of Confirmation, so that these disciples would be properly baptized and properly strengthened by the Spirit to go out and defend their faith in public.

When we recall our own baptisms, our soul was forever marked for God by calling upon the names of the three Persons of the Trinity. We heard the words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” From our rebirth as a member of the universal Church, we were placed under the protection of each Person of the Trinity. When we received our first Communion, we united ourselves for the first time physically and spiritually with Christ himself. But in the sacrament of Confirmation, we received the Holy Spirit, the One who enables us to actively live as Christians, to strengthen us in our daily actions, and to bring the world to Christ. When you pray to God, remind yourself of the uniqueness of the Persons. Thank the Spirit that He is with you now. Invite Him to use you more effectively to serve the Church and to evangelize to the world.

As we reflect on who exactly the Spirit is, we must also reflect on what our relationship with the Spirit is in our own lives. As was expressed at the Ascension of Christ, the Spirit was promised to the Church, and the Apostles would not consider their work finished with the faithful until they shared the gift of the Spirit with them through the act of laying on of hands. The Spirit is the Person that makes the Trinity; we are told of the Spirit in the Old Testament, and it is spoken of in the New Testament as a Person apart from the Son and the Father. But when we pray to God, who are we addressing? Do we call upon the name of Jesus? Do we do as Christ instructed us and call Him “Our Father”? Do we maintain a general use of the term “God”? The truth is that we simply do not pray directly to the Spirit as much as we should, despite the Spirit being the most active presence of God in our daily lives.

While the Spirit is perhaps called upon the least in personal prayers to God, we unfortunately also have a tendency to exploit the Spirit. Many Christians make decisions based on their personal preferences and individual wills, which in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing; if these decisions are bad, they can lead us to sin, and though we are all sinners, we also have the opportunity to confess our sins and to be forgiven for them. However, many bad decisions are made in the name of Christianity because the ones who commit these sins do not consider them to be bad. Worse, if a bad decision made in the name of Christianity becomes popular or makes someone emotionally happy, the decision may be attributed to a “movement of the Spirit.” The Spirit must not be exploited in this way, being conflated with human emotions or human success. Instead, the Spirit will work through humanity for only one reason: to build up the Kingdom of God on earth, in conformity with the truths shared by Christ and taught by his Church. The Spirit has no desire for popularity or success; in fact, Paul tells the presbyters in Ephesus that the Spirit will send him somewhere, yet continually warns him of the hardships that can be expected wherever he is urged to go. Our relationship with the Spirit must be flipped: we must invoke the name of the Spirit more often in our prayers, and we must be careful not to conflate the Spirit with an inner gut-feeling or an emotional response in how we decide what to do.

The Spirit certainly moves us as long as we are willing to build up the Kingdom of God, but the Spirit does not necessarily tell us what the fruits of our labor will be. If we, like Paul, are urged by the Spirit to go where we do not want to go, we will not be told of how wonderful and successful our work will be; instead, the Spirit will simply warn us of the potential dangers and comfort us that we can trust in God’s plan. Ultimately, it is likely that we will never see nor experience the fruits of our labor when we are doing the labor of the Spirit. So why do we do it? Why did Paul do it? He tells us that he considered life of no importance to him, because the “fruit” for him was the eternal life spoken of by Christ: to know the Father and to know that Christ is the one whom He sent, His Son. If we want to know what is actually of the Spirit and what is not, this is our blueprint: the reward for doing the Will of the Spirit is not success, happiness, or popularity. It is the very thing that we are going out to share, even amidst the threat of danger - it is the knowledge of Christ, the knowledge of God, and the faith, hope, and love that exudes from this truth. This is the movement of the Spirit. This is our end. 

Feasts in the Catholic Church are usually celebrated in memory of a particularly important individual in the foundation of the Church or a moment in the life of Christ. However, when it comes to someone as significant to the Church as St. Paul, a mere feast exclusively in his memory or marking his death is simply not enough. Paul was not just another Apostle or another Christian; he became the defining example of quite possibly the most important group in the history of Christendom - the converts. As a result, we celebrate the feast of his conversion as the culmination of his identity and his life on behalf of the Church. There were plenty of “converts” who came before him; in fact, all of the early disciples were converted when they encountered the human being Jesus Christ and decided to leave their lives behind to follow him. But Paul’s conversion was radically different, and it set up the opportunity for those who came after Christ to discern a mystical encounter with him and a conversion not predicated on an encounter with the human being Jesus Christ.

Paul outlines his conversion story in this passage from the Acts of the Apostles. For the more important details, we are all familiar with them. However, Paul mentions certain details that are usually overlooked. First, he mentions that he was taught by Gamaliel. By naming his teacher, he was validating his credentials as a true scholar of the law. Second, he explains exactly what his role was in persecuting the early Church, which was physically binding Christians and handing them over to the authorities. Third, it was another expert in the law named Ananias who brought Paul to sight once more, and who happened to be a Christian himself. In the original account, God speaks to Ananias and describes Paul as “a chosen instrument.” We celebrate the conversion of Paul (as a feast, we do not celebrate anyone else’s conversion) because it is the prototypical experience of metanoia, a complete conversion of the heart. Before his conversion, Paul assumed he knew the truth and exercised what he considered justice of the law simply because he studied it. But it was another master of the law who literally opened his eyes to the actual truth - the loving power of Jesus Christ. Not everyone is Christian, and not every Christian is Catholic. But all Catholics who wear that label with delight came to become Catholic by being led to that point by someone else. Maybe someone who was once a science-focused atheist was led to accept Christ by a science-focused Christian. Maybe a biblically-focused Protestant was led to Catholicism by a biblically-focused Catholic. Maybe a person who desired to be loved was led to God by someone who loved them. One thing is certain: the story of conversion is not possible with a single individual. It requires a community.

In the story of the conversion of St. Paul, the underlying theme is ultimately a message of hope. For the greatest enemies of the Church, there is hope that they may have their eyes opened to their errors. For us sinners, there is hope that we are forgiven. For those who are the victims of persecution, there is hope that their persecutors may one day become their fiercest defenders. Christianity is a story of hope, and there is no better expression of the human virtue of hope than in the conversion of a single soul. This is a community effort, though; when all is said and done, hope will pass away because all that we expect and wait for will be completed. What will be left is love, which is only possible when there is one to love and one to be loved. A movement from hope to love led Paul to embody the potential that all souls have in Christ.