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Commentary on Acts 16:22-34

Today we have part of one of the most dramatic events in the story of the Acts of the Apostles. Paul is still in Philippi. We might wonder at the sudden attack on Paul and Silas with which today’s reading opens. It is such a change from the positive welcome they had been receiving up to this. In fact, the first part of the story and also the sequel are omitted in the reading, but they are needed if we are to appreciate today’s passage fully.

One day, on their way to the river for prayer, Paul had incurred the anger of the owners of a slave girl who had fortune-telling gifts (see Acts 16:16-22). The text literally translates “with a Python spirit”. The Python was the serpent or dragon that guarded the oracle at Delphi. It later came to designate an evil ‘spirit that pronounced oracles’ and also a ventriloquist who, it was thought, had such a spirit in the belly.

This girl kept shouting after them:

These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation. (Acts 16:17)

Even though what she was saying could be interpreted favourably, Paul became irritated by her pestering and exorcised the evil spirit from her. She immediately lost her psychic powers and, as a result, could no longer earn money for her masters. The owners were understandably not very happy about this, and hauled Paul and Silas off to court. They accused them of being Jews who were disturbing the peace and breaking Roman laws. Basically they were accused of proselytising, which was indeed against Roman law.

It is at this point that today’s reading takes up the story. By this time the crowds had been worked up, so the magistrates sentenced Paul and his companion to a flogging with rods, and had them thrown into an inner cell and their feet put in stocks. Here they could be watched closely, and could not escape or be rescued by their friends.

During the night while Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God (they rejoiced to suffer for the name of Christ), a severe earthquake (Greece is very earthquake-prone) struck. The prison building collapsed, the chains fell from the walls and the gates were thrown open. The jailer, who was responsible with his own life for the security of his prisoners, presumed they must all have run away and was prepared to kill himself. To take his own life would remove the shame and distress and was preferable to public execution. It was then he heard Paul calling from inside:

Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.

Then:

The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.

He was beginning to realise that the people he was treating as dangerous criminals were in fact messengers of God.

In deep gratitude, the jailer asked what he should do to be saved. Perhaps he meant it in a more immediate sense vis-a-vis his superiors, who might blame him for the loss of the prisoners.

On the other hand, between the frightening earthquake and the possible escape of his prisoners, he had been close to death. He also realised he was in the presence of two very special people. All this obviously made him reflect. He very likely had heard that these men were preachers of a way of salvation. Now with the earthquake and his own near death, he wanted to know about their Way. Paul showed him where real salvation lay:

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.

And so it was that the jailer and all his household would be instructed in the word of the Lord. Late in the night though it was, the jailer:

…took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into [his] house and set food before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

Whatever form it took, it was truly a Eucharistic meal, a meal of thanksgiving for all concerned. As well, their accusers are nowhere in sight; they were probably too much concerned with the damage the earthquake had caused in the city to be bothered with a couple of wandering preachers.

It is at that point that the reading ends, but it is not the end of the story, which needs to be heard for completeness. The next morning, the magistrates presented the lictors with an order that Paul and Silas be released. Lictors were the equivalent of police officers, among whose duties were the arrest and punishment of criminals. The message was passed to Paul by the jailer. He told them they were free to go and he wished them well.

However, that was not good enough for Paul who said:

They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Romans, and have thrown us into prison, and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves. (Acts 16:37)

There had been a very serious miscarriage of justice, and the magistrates were alarmed that they had treated two Roman citizens in this way. Roman citizenship granted special privileges with regard to criminal process. Roman law forbade, under severe penalty, the beating of Roman citizens. This will not be the last time that Paul will cause alarm by revealing his citizenship, which granted privileges totally unknown to the ordinary resident of Roman colonies.

The magistrates humbly presented themselves, led Paul and Silas out of the prison and begged them to leave the city. However, Paul and Silas first went to say farewell to Lydia, their host, and to the other Christian brothers and sisters, and only then left the city.

This story once again indicates how God can write straight with crooked lines. Out of what seemed catastrophe for both the evangelisers (flogging and jail) and the jailer (the earthquake and its consequences) there came out something beautiful for all of them, and in the midst of it all was the love of Christ. A thriving community was left behind and they would be the recipients of one of Paul’s most beautiful letters.

We too continue to benefit from this saga. If only we could see Jesus at the heart of everything that happens in our lives!

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Commentary on John 16:12-15

Jesus continues to speak about the giving of the Spirit to his followers:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

They are still too raw in their understanding. It will take time for them fully to absorb the meaning of Jesus’ life and teaching. By then he will be long gone, so they will need the guidance of the Spirit to lead them to that fuller understanding. Jesus tells them the Spirit:

…will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

The Spirit will guide them in their response:

…to the things that are to come.

Following on what Jesus has taught them, from their understanding of the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and from their Pentecost experience, a whole new order, a new way of looking at the world, will result of which they will be the inaugurators.

And that guidance still is much needed for we have not reached, and we never will reach on this earth, the fullness of the truth about God and Jesus. The establishment of the Kingdom has still a long way to go.

Once again Jesus reminds his disciples that everything they are learning comes originally from the Father through the Son, and from the Son through the Spirit. These are not three separate revelations, but one message that emanates from each one successively.

We too, as Church, as churches, as communities, as individuals, need the constant guidance of the Spirit that we may remain faithful to the truth that is given us and be always open to understanding it more deeply so that we can pass it on to others with full integrity.

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Commentary on John 16:5-11

The disciples are sad because Jesus is going to leave them. He now reassures them that, contrary to what they must be thinking at this moment, it is better for him to go. If Jesus does not go away, then the Spirit, the Paraclete, will not come.

As long as Jesus is with his disciples in his present form, he is actually very limited in his presence. It is fine as long as they are all together, but what would happen if they were to be scattered in various places to do his work? And what of the many more disciples in distant places who would never have an opportunity to be in direct contact with Jesus?

It is through the Spirit of Jesus, the risen and ascended Jesus, that he can continue to be with his people at all times and in any place on earth. Yes, it is better that Jesus should go and come back through the Spirit.

And the Spirit:

…will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment…

That is, the Spirit will reveal the wrongness of the world—that world of the purely secular—in not putting its trust in the Way of Jesus.

The world’s sin is primarily one of unbelief, an ‘unreadiness’ to open its mind to the vision of life that Jesus gives. The Spirit will clearly show the rightness of Jesus in his claims to come from God and to being the Word of God to the world. The Spirit will reveal the meaning of Christ’s death as the condemnation of all that is evil in the world, above all in its denial of love as the centre of living.

The New American Bible expresses it thus:

“These verses illustrate the forensic character of the Paraclete’s role: in the forum of the disciples’ conscience he prosecutes the world. He leads believers to see (a) that the basic sin was and is refusal to believe in Jesus; (b) that, although Jesus was found guilty and apparently died in disgrace, in reality righteousness has triumphed, for Jesus has returned to his Father; (c) finally, that it is “the ruler of this world”, Satan, who has been condemned through Jesus’ death”.

On which side am I—on that of the Spirit or that of the world?

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Commentary on Acts 17:15,22—18:1

We continue to accompany Paul on his Second Missionary Journey. After passing through Thessalonica (to whose Christians are addressed two of Paul’s earliest letters) and Beroea (both in Macedonia), Paul’s next destination was Athens, at that time still the cultural centre of the Mediterranean, although political power was now in Rome. Our reading begins with Paul arriving in the city, with instructions for Silas and Timothy to follow on as soon as possible.

At this time, Athens was really only a shadow of its former self. Some five centuries before Paul it had been at the height of its glory in art, philosophy and literature, with a culture which still influences modern life today. In the generations which followed, the city still had a reputation for philosophical thinking, and in Paul’s day there was a leading university in the city.

While waiting for his companions to arrive, Paul was quite horrified at the level of idolatry he found in such a supposedly sophisticated city. He was engaged in discussions not only with Jews and other sympathisers, but also got involved with Stoic and Epicurean philosophers who found his teaching rather strange. “What does this pretentious babbler want to say?” they asked (Acts 17:18). Because of his mention of someone called ‘Jesus’ and terms like ‘resurrection’, they said he sounded like a “proclaimer of foreign (i.e. non-Greek) divinities”. Eventually they invited him to address the Council of the Areopagus, an indication of how seriously they took him even though they found his ideas outlandish.

It should have been a very important venue for Paul. If he could win the Athenians around to accepting the message of Christ, it could have far-reaching effects. The Greeks were famous for their intellectual interests and their love of discussion and debate. As Luke comments rather laconically,

Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new. (Acts 17:21)

Yet, in a way, it was this passion for discussion of ideas which made the Greeks so outstanding in philosophy and literature (see Fr Bernard Lonergan’s writings for discussion of the Athenians’ gift for conversation, a source of great intellectual creativity).

So Paul went to the Areopagus in the heart of the city and spoke to the people assembled there. And it is Paul’s address which forms the main part of today’s reading.

The Areopagus was a hill to the south of the Agora, the central market place of Athens where people gathered. Areopagus also referred to the Athenian supreme council which held its sessions there.

Paul chose as his topic the knowledge of God, a theme very popular in the propaganda of contemporary Hellenistic Judaism. The pagans are accused of not knowing God, the proof being that they worship idols. This ignorance, Paul tells them, is culpable, since all are capable of knowing God as creator and controller of the cosmos.

Nevertheless, Paul’s address is in a totally different style from what he had been giving up to this time. He makes no explicit mention of the Scriptures; he does not even mention the name of Jesus. He speaks of the Greeks as “extremely spiritual”, although the word he used could also mean “superstitious” (Greek, deisidaimon), depending on the context. Paul’s meaning will emerge as he speaks. In the context, it is clear that Paul wanted to be complimentary in order to get a hearing.

He tries to go in their door by taking as his cue an altar he saw, dedicated to an “unknown god”. Polytheists (like the Greeks) used to dedicate altars to ‘unknown gods’, in case they incurred the vengeance of gods whose names they did not know. It was a kind of all-inclusive title. While it was a way to make sure that none of the many Greek gods was left unworshipped, it also indicated the level of superstition that co-existed with the Athenians’ much-vaunted intellectualism.

Paul uses the practice for his own ends and also turns back the charge of preaching about ‘outlandish’ gods which people had never heard of. And he goes on to spell out for them just who this ‘unknown’ God really is.

He is the God who made this world and all that lives in it. This idea was common in Greek thought and Hellenistic Judaism; it is a form of the old biblical theme found in the prophet Amos 5:8 and in Psalm 50:1-6. Paul proclaims a personal Creator in contrast with the pantheistic God of the Stoics.

He is a Lord who pervades the heavens and the earth and is not confined to man-made sanctuaries. Nor does he need the help of any human. On the contrary, it is he who gives life and breath and everything with it.

He made one the whole human race, meaning that all belong to one family (Athenians, Romans, Greeks, ‘barbarians’, Jews and Gentiles). A belief we assert every time we pray “Our Father…”. Through his creation he made his presence evident all over the world:

…so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.

He is the Designer God where nothing is left to mere chance, as the Epicureans thought. He even gives two quotations from Greek poets to strengthen his argument.

In him [i.e. God] we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said…

This quotation is attributed to the poet Epimenides (about 600 BC) who came from Knossos in Crete, and is found in his work Cretica. And Paul also quotes the Cilician poet Aratus (about 315 to 240 BC) in his Phaenomen and in Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus:

‘For we, too, are his [i.e. God’s] offspring.’

Paul also questions the practice of worshipping objects of stone or metal as gods:

Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.

In other words, how can that God be contained in images of gold, silver or stone—materials which are on a lower level than ourselves? Note that it is a very different thing—as we have in the Catholic Church—to have images representing our God or the saints. They play the same role as family photographs, as no one believes that a picture of Uncle Joe is really Uncle Joe.

Up to this, God had tolerated this practice which was done in ignorance but, with the coming of Jesus, all that has changed. It is time now to ‘repent’ (Greek, metanoia—a word which, as we have already seen, implies a total conversion in our way of living) because God:

…will have the world judged in righteousness by a man [Jesus] whom he has appointed…

And all this, says Paul, is confirmed by Jesus’ having been raised from the dead.

But at the mention of “raising him from the dead”, some of Paul’s listeners began mocking and others, perhaps with their interest whetted, said, “We will hear you again about this.” However, it seems clear that their interest was purely on the level of intellectual speculation and not at all on the spiritual or religious. Immortality of the soul was accepted by the Greeks (see Plato’s Dialogues), but not the resurrection of a dead body.

In the Greek world, even among Christians, the doctrine of the resurrection was strongly resisted—as we see in the First Letter to the Corinthians (15:12). The Jerusalem Sanhedrists also condemned and attacked this Christian dogma, whereas the Athenians of the Areopagus were content to mock it.

Basically then, Paul’s mission to the Athenians was a dismal failure. From now on he refuses to use the arguments from Greek philosophy. So he writes later on to the Christians of Corinth:

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the testimony of God to you with superior speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Cor 2:1-2)

As well, a little before that (in the same letter), he had written:

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
(1 Cor 1:20-24)

From now on he would rely only on the power of the Gospel message.

In spite of this, there were some converts made in Athens. Among these was Dionysius the Areopagite. The Jerusalem Bible notes:

“Luke’s readers must have known him. He became the subject of legend, especially since the 5th century when an author (the ‘pseudo-Dionysius’) published various mystical writings under his name. Later legend identifies him with St Denys, the first bishop of Paris (3rd century) or even that he was bishop of Athens.”

Another convert mentioned was Damaris. The New International Version Bible notes:

“Some have suggested that she must have been a foreign, educated woman to have been present at a public meeting such as the Areopagus. It is also possible that she was a God-fearing Gentile who had heard Paul at the synagogue.”

From Athens, Paul continued south to Corinth. He would have gone there either by land along the isthmus, a distance of about 80 km (50 miles) or else by sea from Piraeus, the port of Athens, to Cenchrea, the port of Corinth, on the eastern shore of the isthmus of Corinth.

Corinth had been rebuilt by no less a person than Julius Caesar, and became capital of the Roman province of Achaia (southern Greece). Its population was largely Roman and Latin-speaking, but it was a lively commercial centre which attracted people of all nations. There was also a considerable Jewish colony. The immorality of the city was famous, even by the standards of the day.

Paul does not seem ever to have ever returned to Athens. But, once again, we see that God’s ways are not our ways. Once again, we see how Paul is turned in a different direction from what seemed the obvious way to go. His next stop will be Corinth, a city, on the face of it, which—compared to sophisticated Athens—was not at all promising, given its reputation for lewdness and immorality.

On the positive side, we should look carefully at how Paul presented his message in a language that would make sense to his hearers. He did not dilute or compromise his message, but he did try to express it in language that would give an opening to an audience totally unfamiliar with the Jewish Scriptures. This is something we need to remember whether we are bringing our message to a culture which has never heard the message before, or to one which has lost it. Much of our preaching, it has to be said, is to the converted and not to those who have not heard the message or have only heard it in distorted forms.

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Commentary on John 15:26—16:4

We continue reading the discourse of Jesus to his disciples at the Last Supper. Today he promises that the Paraclete, “the Spirit of truth” will come, sent both by the Father and by Jesus the Son.

As we saw earlier, Paraclete (Greek parakletos) means a person who stands by one and gives support. It can be applied to a defence lawyer in a court of law. So the word is sometimes translated as an ‘advocate’ or someone who ‘consoles’. It can be anyone who gives comfort, good advice or moral support. Various forms of the word are used about eight times in a short and beautiful passage at the opening of St Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians (1:3-7).

Here, the Spirit that God bestows through Jesus on his disciples will be one who will comfort and strengthen them in the sometimes difficult days ahead, and will guide them in their fuller understanding of what Jesus has taught them. The Spirit will confirm all that Jesus has said and done. As well, the disciples are, with the help of the same Spirit, to give witness to all that Jesus has said and done. And again he warns them that they will need all the help they can get from the support of the Spirit because:

They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.

This was a prophecy which was very soon to be fulfilled and continues to be fulfilled down to our own day. People will do this because they do not really know the Father or Jesus. If they did, they too would believe and would recognise the presence of Jesus in the Christian community and its message.

As has been mentioned several times already, we are not to be surprised if we find ourselves (as Christians) the object of attack, of slander, of abuse, of misunderstandings, of contempt. St Ignatius of Loyola is said to have prayed that the members of the order he founded would always be persecuted—it was a sign that they were doing their job. It is a strange paradox, but the message of Christian love and forgiveness, a message of peace and justice, is found by many to be very threatening and one that must be attacked.

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Commentary on Acts 16:11-15

Following on his vision of the young Macedonian man, Paul and his companions decide to cross over from Troas and head towards the town of Philippi. On the way they passed through Samothrace (a place made famous by the magnificent marble sculpture of Victory now on display in the Louvre at Paris) and Neapolis (meaning ‘New City’—a name it shares with Naples among other places).

Samothrace was actually an island in the northeastern Aegean Sea, lying just half way between Troas and Neapolis. It was a convenient place for boats to anchor rather than risk sailing at night. Neapolis was the seaport for Philippi, about 16 km (10 miles) away. Today it is known as Kavalla.

Philippi, as Acts tells us, was a major town in the principal district of the province of Macedonia. It had become a Roman colony and was a completely Latin city—its administration modelled on that of Rome. According to the New International Version Bible, it was

“…a city…named after Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. Since it was a Roman colony, it was independent of provincial administration and had a governmental organisation modelled after that of Rome. Many retired legionnaires from the Roman army settled there, but few Jews.”

Its name was further enhanced by Paul writing one of his most beautiful letters to the Christian community of the town. Hence, a place, then as well as now, steeped in history, both secular and religious.

Paul and his companions spent some time in the city. On a sabbath day, they went outside the city to find a place to pray. With so few Jews in the city, there was probably no synagogue so, as was not uncommon, they chose an outdoors venue near running water. In this case it would have been the bank of the Gangites River. By choosing such a place they could also carry out the necessary ablutions before prayer (it is clear that Paul, the Pharisee, maintained many of his old religious customs).

There they met some women and among them was one named Lydia, a dealer in purple goods from Thyatira. She may have been called Lydia because she came from the district of Lydia. Thyatira, situated in the Roman province of Asia, 33 km (20 miles) southeast of Pergamum (in the Hellenistic kingdom of Lydia), was famous for its dye-works, especially royal purple (crimson). Later, there was a Christian community there which is twice mentioned in the book of Revelation (1:11; 2:18). As purple-dyed goods were expensive and only worn by the wealthy, we can take it that this woman was fairly well off herself. Also remember that the rich man in the parable of ‘Dives and Lazarus’ was clothed in fine purple (Luke 16:19-31).

Lydia was also a “worshiper of God”. In other words, though a Gentile, she believed in the God of the Jews and followed the moral teachings of Scripture. She was not, however, a full convert to Judaism. But being well disposed, “the Lord opened her heart” to what Paul was saying and accepted the Gospel message. Like Cornelius before her, she and her whole household (family members and servants) were all baptised.

She then invited Paul and his companions to share the hospitality of her (probably large) house, if they truly regarded her as “faithful to the Lord”, and would brook no refusal. The wording suggests that Paul was not altogether willing to stay in such a place; in general, he tended to boast that he supported himself from what he earned by his work. In this case, he may have regarded Lydia’s place as too grand, or perhaps he remembered the instruction of the Master about not moving from house to house, but to stay in the first place which offered hospitality. Lydia apparently was a woman who would not take ‘no’ for an answer. A place like hers, in fact, would make an excellent house church where the community could gather. So it seems that in this one case Paul did accept, and this is a compliment to Lydia’s charity and that of the other newly baptised Philippian Christians.

As such, Philippi shares the distinction of really being the first European centre to hear the Christian message. It was to be the beginning of a glorious history, which was to transform the continent, not only in the area of religion, but also in culture and the arts (painting, sculpture, literature, music) and in social and political development—a movement which still continues.

Paul, of course, was not to know any of that; he would quote the saying from the Gospel:

One sows and another reaps. (John 4:37)

Paul saw himself primarily as a sower. The same is true of each one of us. But it is important that we sow the seed; otherwise there is nothing to reap.

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Commentary on John 15:18-21

Jesus has been urging his disciples to love all those around them as a sign of their love of him. Today he warns them that there is no guarantee that they will be loved in return. If they hated such a loving person as Jesus so bitterly, his disciples cannot expect to be treated differently.

And the reason they will be hated is because they will refuse to identify themselves with the values and priorities of the secular world. They will reject materialistic greed and competitiveness, the scramble for status and power, the hatred, anger, violence and revenge which mark so many people’s lives.

The most terrible thing to happen to Christians is for them to be loved by that world; it is a sign they have become part of it. Says Jesus,

I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Once again he reminds them that the servant is not greater than his master.

If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.

In other words, hardly at all.

Some of us may find it difficult to understand this. We feel that the Church should be honoured and respected. We can get upset when we hear ourselves or our leaders rubbished in the media, or hear of Christians languishing in jail or suffering torture simply for living their faith. But we are rightly proud of our martyrs and our courageous witnesses.

But there is a fate we often undergo in modern society which is far worse—when we are simply ignored and go unnoticed altogether. Our local church may be filled every week, but what goes on there may have become completely irrelevant to the surrounding society. It is as if we did not exist.

It is also tragic when we find hate and division within our own community, which can be a major source of scandal to outsiders. And, of course, all through the history of the Church there has been sinful behaviour at all levels. We should not be surprised at that, but it is particularly reprehensible when it goes on behind a veneer of moral superiority—the whited sepulchres that Jesus speaks about (Matt 23:27). All of this compromises our witness to the love of God for his people everywhere. When any of these things happen, then we know we have really failed the Gospel.

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Commentary on John 15:12-17

Jesus, speaking to his disciples at the Last Supper, continues to talk about the centrality of love. He expresses it in a central commandment—and perhaps surprisingly to some—this commandment is not to love God, or to love Jesus, but to love one another. God does not need to be mentioned because that love is only possible when God is acting in and through us.

That is the touchstone of the genuineness of our love for God. And the measure of that love is that of Jesus for us. If that is not clear enough, he spells it out:

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

That may mean dying for others, but it can also mean living for others; in either case our primary concern is for the need of the brother or sister. And this is the only path to demonstrate that we love God and that God’s love is in us.

Jesus shows that love by his own death for his friends. And who are his friends?

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

And what he commands is that we love each other to the same degree that he loves us.

Earlier, after washing their feet, Jesus told his disciples that he was their Lord and Master, but now he also calls them his friends and not servants. Jesus is our Lord, but he is also our Brother and our Friend. Because of that he has shared with us all he has received from his Father. Obviously, it is for us to share all we know about Jesus with others too.

Finally, he reminds them that they are his followers, because he has chosen them—they have not chosen him. We do not confer any favour on Jesus by following him. We are only answering a call that has already come from him. And the response to that call is to “bear fruit”, lasting fruit. Our lives must be productive in love, in caring, in justice, in compassion and in building up the world of the Kingdom. And we need have no fear. God is with us and everything we need will be given to us to become fruitful. Finally, once again, he repeats the core commandment:

I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

We need to ask ourselves, how much of all this is descriptive of our own lives?

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Commentary on Acts 15:22-31

Having decided that circumcision should no longer be imposed on non-Jewish converts, the community leaders together with the whole church gathered together in Jerusalem to promulgate their decision to the wider Church. They sent a delegation to Antioch in Syria, which was effectively the centre of the Greek-speaking Christians (both Jews and Gentiles). Wisely, the delegation included representatives from the Jerusalem community.

Among those from Jerusalem two leaders are mentioned: Judas, also called Barsabbas, and Silas. It is not clear who Barsabbas is, but in the first chapter of Acts we are told that a Joseph Barsabbas was one of the two candidates chosen to replace Judas Iscariot. But as we know, “the lot fell on Matthias”. Silas became a missionary companion of Paul and we will meet him on the Second Missionary Journey. Silas is the same person known as Silvanus in some of the Pauline letters. At this time, he was a leader in the Jerusalem church and called a ‘prophet’ (Acts 15:32) and, like Paul, was a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37).

But with them went Paul and Barnabas, who represented the outer limits of the Church, and who had raised the issue in the first place. Apparently there was unanimous agreement with both the choice of messengers and the contents of the letter which they carried.

The letter comes from the “apostles and the elders [Greek, presbyteroi]….leaders among the brothers” in Jerusalem and is addressed to the “the brothers and sisters of gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia”. Antioch was the leading city of the combined and adjoining provinces of Syria and Cilicia. It is significant that the Jerusalem leaders call themselves “brothers” of the Gentile converts, thus identifying all as belonging to the same family.

They speak apologetically of the Jewish Christians who had, apparently on their own initiative, gone to Antioch to complain about the non-circumcision of Gentile converts. That is why they are sending a delegation from Jerusalem together with Paul and Barnabas, who have their full endorsement. They are men who:

…have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.

They then make a significant statement:

…it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…

Not only are they speaking unanimously in their own name, but they know they have the full endorsement of the Holy Spirit in their decision. They then list the four exceptions mentioned yesterday (Thursday of Week 5 of Easter)—Jewish practices which were still binding on all.

We should note the interesting process that is being described during the past three days’ readings. The Spirit is with the whole Church and communicates its faith with the centre. The centre then discerns and recognises where the Spirit is working and issues an authoritative statement giving confirmation under the guidance of that Spirit.

The Church still works this way. The Pope is not the one who tells the Church what to believe; he tells the Church what it believes after listening to the faith of the whole Church. This listening process on the part of Rome is crucial for the growth and development of the Church in so many different areas with very different needs and aspirations.

There is another element in today’s reading which at first sight seems to be contradictory. Having ruled out the obligation to be circumcised, they still forbid eating meat sacrificed to idols, abstaining from blood, the meat of strangled animals and “sexual immorality”.

Yet this shows the need for a sensitive balance between the feelings of the Gentiles and those of the Jews. Circumcision was a much more sensitive (in every sense!) issue, involving as it did mutilation of the body and in a particularly delicate area, relating to not only the body, but the whole area of sexuality and generation.

The other Jewish traditions which were still being imposed could be lived with without great difficulty. In the course of time they too would fall away. All of these issues concerning inviolable principles and acceptable areas of compromise are just as relevant in our Church today as they were at the beginning.

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Commentary on John 15:9-11

Jesus continues speaking to his disciples at the Last Supper. After giving them the parable of the vine, he now goes on to give its real meaning: the Father, the Son and his followers are all to be united in love. As the Father pours out his love on the Son, so the Son pours out his love on his disciples. They, in turn, are to pour out the same love on their brothers and sisters everywhere. That is how we keep the ‘commandments’ of Jesus; all his commandments can be summarised in that one word ‘love’ (Greek, agape).

As someone once described it, the love of Jesus is like an electric current. If the current does not pass through you, it cannot enter into you. Similarly, if the love of Jesus does not pour through us to others, it is a sign that his love is not really in us. The love of God has to be recognised, responded to and passed on. It is not just a ‘given’.

And the fruit of that love is joy, the same joy that Jesus himself experiences. The normal situation of the Christian disciple should be joy and consolation. After all, as St Teresa of Avila said, “A sad saint is a sorry saint”. It is a contradiction in terms. Some Christians are incredibly ‘serious’ about their faith. One might wonder if they have yet experienced the love of Jesus. If they did, wouldn’t that love be joyfully flowing out to others?