Level-up
Homily on Thursday, Third Week of Easter, 18 April 2024, PIL Malaybalay
As you might have noticed, throughout the whole season of Easter, the first reading of our weekday Masses is always taken from the Acts of the Apostles. By reading from this New Testament book we Catholics get an idea of the life of the early Church immediately after the Ascension and Pentecost events. Thanks to the initiative of St Luke who gathered much data and wrote them down in an orderly manner, we have come to realize how the Risen Lord had been so actively present in the early Church and how the Holy Spirit was so much at work in the apostles and their disciples.
Just this past week, we heard the amazing story of St Stephen, the deacon who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, preached to the Jews about Jesus’ death and resurrection. His zeal in giving witness consumed him to the point of allowing himself to be stoned to death for Jesus. And before he died he even prayed to God for his executioners following the example Jesus showed on the cross.
Today we hear another amazing story, this time it is the ministry of Philip, another deacon ordained by the apostles to help them in their preaching and apostolic work. Philip was just walking along the road from Jerusalem to Gaza when he met a high ranking Ethiopian official who on his chariot was reading aloud a passage from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Surprised to have been invited on board, Philip got inside the chariot and accompanied the Ethiopian convert. After their one-on-one bible study and Spirit-filled catechism on Scriptures, the eunuch was gradually enlightened about the person of Jesus Christ as the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy, and very soon he expressed his willingness to be baptized in his name. So when they reached a place where there was a pool of water, they interrupted their journey and went down into the water. There and then the Ethiopian Eunuch was baptized and became a Christian.
Isn’t God’s Word today very timely for us, catechists who are gathered here in PIL Malaybalay? During these past days you have been blessed to be here in order to participate in this on-going formation program. Just yesterday we were discussing how the Rite of Infant Baptism is to be celebrated according to Vatican II. And afterwards you met by language groups to revisit your catechetical modules to see how your Pre-Jordan or Pre-Bap seminars may level up with a much richer content. With this work it is our hope that the faithful you serve will receive a much clearer understanding and a better appreciation of their Catholic faith, in particular, the sacraments of Christian Initiation.
Dearly beloved catechists and brother priests, we are truly filled with joy and hope to see you working hard on updating and improving your catechetical modules. However like Philip in the first reading, it is equally important that we also pray and allow ourselves to be moved by the Holy Spirit in the work we do. We need to be moved by the Spirit in our planning, in our teaching, and in our day to day encounters with ordinary people. At times we need also to sit with the young, the adults and the elderly, not so much on chariots, but on kalesas, or in tricycles, jeepneys and buses, striving to accompany them in a personal way towards a life-changing encounter with Jesus as the Risen Lord.
In the first reading we just heard, we see a sharp contrast between the unexpectedly positive response of the Ethiopian eunuch and how the Jews responded to the preaching of the deacon Stephen. Stephen’s audience were Jews by birth and yet they rejected the Good News. But the Ethiopian eunuch who was only a convert to Judaism accepted and embraced Jesus Christ without reservation and delay. Clearly we see in him the fulfilment of the challenge that the Jews received from Jesus as recorded in St John’s Gospel, “This is the work of God, …believe in the one whom he sent… And whoever believes has eternal life.”
Brothers and sisters, there are times when we strive to share our faith with the faithless and give the gifts we ourselves have freely received, but unfortunately we get rejected, mocked, insulted or simply ignored. When that happens we should neither be shocked nor puzzled because the apostles themselves have many times experienced the same thing without being discouraged. On the contrary, always aware of their being gifted by the Risen Lord, they persevered in striving to be a gift to others. There were good times, in fact, when people accepted the good news they preached, just like the Ethiopian eunuch who was baptized by Philip.
Dearly beloved, our catechetical and pastoral ministry will remain powerless and fruitless if we do not strive to level up. We have already been gifted so much by the Father. It is time that we now give and share that faith with others more effectively. May this Eucharist empower us with the seven-fold gift of the Holy Spirit to deepen, strengthen and appreciate this Christian faith and soon become a much better gift to the faithless, the hopeless and the helpless. GiGsss!
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