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.
The apostles were arrested by the same religious leaders and scribes who condemned Jesus to death on Good Friday. In the same city of Jerusalem, the authorities arrested the apostles just as they did to Jesus. The authorities were disturbed by the healings the apostles were performing and by the message they were preaching.
At the arrest of Jesus, the apostles were deeply fearful and denied any knowledge of Jesus, but time around we hear the Galilean Fisherman, Peter, “filled with the Holy Spirit” address the authorities in a manner and with words that were unusual.
To the question “By what power or by what name have you done this?” Simon Peter boldly replied that “it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean” that they preached and performed miracles, and that “there was no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” This level of boldness was unusual!
There are two lessons we are invited to reflect on today as we go about our lives as disciples of Christ: one is about courage, and the other is about attribution, or how we assign credit.
On the lesson of courage, there are two versions of courage: there is a reckless type of courage that puts itself in harm’s way for the sake of it. There is an intentional, measured, aware kind of courage that understands the price to be paid yet chooses to stand in harm’s way for the sake of truth, a cause, or a higher value. That is the kind we see in the lives of many of the Church’s martyrs.
We are invited to embrace the second type of courage, in which we live for something deeper and are willing to lay down our lives for it, just as our ancestors in faith did. We live in a world that sometimes is hostile and desperately needs courageous witnesses. People who are willing to live out and speak up for values, causes, or truths that may be unpopular. That is what we see in the lives of Peter and John. That kind of courageous witness comes from being “filled with the Holy Spirit!”
Second, the apostles attributed who they were and all they did to Christ the Nazorean. They had clarity about their identity and mission as all coming from Christ. They did not take any credit for the healing or the preaching they performed. They did not point to their intellectual successes or their spiritual strengths. They clearly knew that they were mere instruments.
May we in this Mass ask for grace to be filled with the Holy Spirit and become courageous witnesses to Christ just like the apostles. May we, too, receive the grace we need to be coherent and fluent every time we are asked the question, “By what power or by what name have you done this?” Amen.