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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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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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Easter season | Learn more about our faith
I would like to invite us to briefly reflect on the First Reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles. There is a question in there that was directed at the Apostles, but it is also directed at each of us as followers of Jesus. “By what power or by what name have you done this?” Or as they say in politics, “Who paid you for this?” In the text we have today, there is a tension between the apostles Peter and John, on the one hand, and the religious leaders, on the other. After the resurrection, the apostles were went about healing the sick and preaching and they were arrested by the authorities.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
As we move towards Holy Week in this Lenten season, the tone of our readings is gradually changing. There is increasing opposition or resistance to Christ. There is opposition to who Christ was, and opposition to his mission. Today in our gospel we hear that “the Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus” and his response to their action was that “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?” He had healed the sick, made the blind see, raised the dead, made the lame walk, and here he was being harassed and almost being killed.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Our readings this Friday draw a parallel between Joseph and Jesus. In the First Reading the brothers of Joseph want to kill him, and in the Gospel through the parable of the Vineyard the Pharisees sought to kill Jesus. Both Joseph and Jesus go through great agony but in the end God’s plans triumph.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
One of the key Pillars of Lent is Prayer. This is besides Almsgiving and Fasting. During this Lenten time, we educate ourselves more about prayer and increase our practice of it. In today’s readings we are invited to reflect on the Pillar of Prayer. Prayer as we might be aware can take different forms. There is a Prayer of Praise that celebrates God’s greatness and character; there is a Prayer of Worship or Adoration that celebrates God’s majesty or power, and there is a Prayer of Penance where we express sorrow for our individual and social sins and ask for forgiveness. There is also Prayer of Thanksgiving where we express gratitude for God’s blessings in our lives; there is also a Prayer of Lamentation where we express sorrow, grief, or distress, and call upon God’s intervention.
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