30/04/2023

God's revelation of himself to his favoured nation had been completed when Peter, his chosen rock on which to build his Church, addressed the crowd gathered in the Temple to celebrate Pentecost. 

I have been born into my Faith. All of those listening to Peter and he himself had been born into their Faith. Faith in God has been received into our beings at birth. My Faith has grown and been fed by religious practices and  Scriptures. I have never been argued out of my Faith by heretics or philosophers no matter how skillful. My readings from the Fathers and from modern theologians have only confirmed the Faith that is recorded in the Scriptures celebrated in the Liturgy.

There has to be something more than skilful words that convinced those who listened to Peter. His religion was the same as theirs but so terribly different. God had a son! The man executed for blasphemy by Crucifixion the previous month was alive again  and had been seen by these Apostles. Their wives sisters and daughters knew women who repeated the same words about the Resurrected Son as this man speaking in the Temple.

Father Son and Holy Spirit was clearly present with Peter and the others in those first days of the Church. There was no worldly power in their group, there were no great scholars, there were no doctors or golden mouths there were only, in the eyes of the world, unimportant men and women who had been gifted by God with the faith that knew that their lives would not end in their deaths and that the Creator /Saviour and Love asked only that they know, love and serve him in this world. They were not left alone to do this but were also promised the loving guidance of a Good Shepherd who was also their Spiritual Food.

Dear Lord let me be only sincere in my thoughts and faithful in my deeds. Let me stay with you at all times so that secure in your grace I can rebuff sin. May Mary who witnessed all of your life and the planting of the seeds of Faith continue to support the Church, teach sinners to seek forgiveness and implore you for the Mercy that is needed by all on Earth and in Purgatory.