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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
I would like to draw your attention to today’s First reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles. The reading is ordinarily approached as the story of Paul’s conversion — from Saul to Paul. However, I would like us to approach it differently as Ananias’ story, a story of extraordinary risk and courage. We heard that Saul, a radically prejudiced, dangerous enemy to believers in Christ, “breathing murderous threats” was on the road to Damascus on a mission to arrest and murder Christians. Jesus knocked Saul off his high horse! The Lord then asked Ananias to go and pray for Saul to regain his “sight.” Ananias knew how risky this would be to him and to other believers in the city. His reply to Jesus was, “Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man, what evil things he has done to your holy ones in Jerusalem. And here, here has authority to imprison all who call upon your name.” In US American parlance, Ananias was basically telling Jesus “Seriously? Are you asking me to go to a man who wants to arrest, imprison or even murder me?” That’s how imagine an American would respond!
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Today’s readings reveal a quiet but powerful truth: faith does not begin with our search for God, but with God’s search for us. He always takes the first step. He draws us—often gently, patiently—even before we recognize it. In the first reading, we encounter the Ethiopian eunuch, a man of influence and learning, yet still searching. He is reading Isaiah but cannot grasp its meaning. When Philip asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” his response is deeply humble: “How can I, unless someone guides me?”
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Why do we find conversion stories so inspirational? Maybe I should be asking, why do I find conversion stories so inspirational. Just yesterday I came across a story about five medical students who were executed in 1943 by the Nazis. The story of one is unique in that he was baptized and received the Eucharist the day before his execution. Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles always intrigued me because it mentions that Saul who we know to be Paul sought out Christians and dragged them from their homes turning them over to the authorities for persecution and imprisonment and yet became a prominent missionary making Jesus known, loved and served.
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We have a beautiful quotation from Mother Teresa about “the bread of life” she says “Jesus has made himself the Bread of life to give us life. Night and day, He is there. If you really want to grow in love, come back to the Eucharist, come back to that Adoration.” In the Gospel reading, Jesus declares himself as the “Bread of life” This bread of life he offers, is none else than the very life of God. This bread of life gives spiritual nourishment and eternal satisfaction to all who believe in Him.
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Every family has one, a child who is simply, inexplicably, unreasonably good. Not perfect, but just genuinely, radiantly good. They do their chores without being asked. They share their stuff without being told. They comfort a crying sibling while everyone else is still arguing about whose fault it is. And the baffling thing is, nobody taught them to be this way. They just are. And even the parents look at them sometimes and think: where exactly did you come from? And if the early Church was a family, that child was Stephen.
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Years back in my home country, a popular local diocesan priest disagreed with his local bishop and decided to found his own Church. His decision garnered immense news coverage in the country because the Catholic Church in the country is known for being highly organized and one tight knit entity. A whole news cycle developed around this priest and his new Church. I wrote an opinion piece for our national news paper that argued how flawed the foundation of the new entity was, and how the Catholic Church by giving constant media attention to the new religious outfit was giving mileage to the concerned priest and his new Church. I borrowed the words and the wisdom of Gamaliel in our first reading today, “If it is of human origin, it will destroy itself but if it comes from God it will stay.” Unfortunately, history proved it was of human origin, and everything disintegrated.
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