As a convert to the faith, I have a special love for the Book of Acts. It narrates the flowering of the early Church, from its very beginning with the apostles at Pentecost to the missionary journeys of St. Paul. The story crackles on the page with vigor and energy. Perhaps I love this book best because the early Church is a church of converts: people whose hearts were cut to the quick by the preaching of the apostles. Most, if not all, had left their pagan backgrounds, their families, and livelihoods, to follow the gospel of Christ. In a very real way, the mystical body of Christ was coming to life.
Miracles and Life in the Spirit
Today’s readings from Acts recount two miracles performed by Peter. In the first, Peter heals a paralyzed man by calling upon the authority of the Lord: “Jesus Christ heals you.” Later in the town of Joppa, even more dramatically, he brings back to life a woman who had just died. Peter sends everyone out of the room and prays by the side of the woman, uttering the words, “Tabitha, rise.” Through great miracles like these, many people turned to the Lord.
We who have read these miracles many times may take them for granted, but in real time these were moments of radical confidence in the Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, these accounts reveal to us what life in the Spirit looks like. We discover a fullness and vitality at work unlike anything seen before. How else could Peter’s words effect such miracles? How else could faith in Christ spread like wildfire to the neighboring nations and beyond?
Mission Impossible
To recall these events of the early Christians ought to invigorate our own work of evangelization. Often, we may find ourselves lamenting the struggle to spread the gospel in today’s secular culture, yet the early Church faced an even more daunting climate of hostility. For every person who chose to follow Christ, there were far many more that resisted the gospel, even vehemently. It is a sobering though perhaps consoling truth: the fervor and conviction of those who believe, those whose hearts were cut to the quick, have always sprung from the ground of a culture that refuses to believe. Perhaps, too, this juxtaposition seals all the more strongly the faith of the few.
Today’s Gospel reading from the Bread of Life discourse highlights this contrast between those who stay close to Jesus and those who do not. We read that as Jesus reveals the living reality of the Eucharist to the people—that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink—that more and more of them leave, unable to accept something so shocking. Finally, only the twelve are left with him. Everyone else has walked away. When Jesus asks his apostles if they, too, wish to leave, Peter replies with a spirit of helpless trust in the Lord: “To whom else shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.” To this he adds, “We have believed, and we know that you are the holy one of God.”
Abandonment to Christ
Though they could not understand the mysteries Christ unfolded to them, they clung to His words with total abandonment, a pure confidence that his words meant life. It was through this trust in the person of Christ that their hearts became kindling for the fire of the Holy Spirit. The work of evangelization can take place here and nowhere else. As we set forth in our own missionary work to spread the gospel, let us live out this same spirit of total abandonment to the Lord, asking for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. May we echo the words of Peter, “To whom else shall we go?”
