for May 19
Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

Recall where we are in Acts: Paul and Silas (who helped Paul at the Council in Jerusalem) are on Paul’s so-called second missionary journey. They left Antioch in Syria and traveled west through present-day Turkey, re-visiting many of the same towns they had evangelized on Paul’s earlier journey. At first Paul planned to head north, but at the urging of the Spirit. they continued west, crossing the Dardanelles and making their way to the Macedonian city of Philippi. Note that at this point Luke as narrator changes to the first person plural. “. . . we lost no time in arranging a passage to Macedonia,” Luke writes. So from this point on, the reports become remarkably vivid. Also, this point in the story marks in Luke’s account the passage of the good news from Asia into Europe, in hindsight a dramatic milestone in the spread of Christianity. The city of Philippi is familiar to us because Paul later wrote one of his most affectionate letters to the Christian community there, which was entered into the New Testament as the letter to the Philippians.

We heard yesterday the uplifting story of Paul’s first experience in Philippi, his meeting with a woman named Lydia, a devout woman who opened her heart to the Lord, as Luke expresses it, accepted baptism and welcomed Paul into her home. This incident provides anecdotal evidence of a general pattern that arose in the early church, how the homes of the wealthy served as meeting places for the Christian community long before there were Christian church buildings for the assembly. It is in such settings that the eucharist was first celebrated. Only in later centuries, when Christianity became the state established religion, did the elaborate protocols of the imperial Roman court become the paradigm for the ritual celebration of the eucharist. This development from table fellowship in the home to formal pageantry in a large assembly hall was partially undone by the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, which were intended to recover the more original setting for the eucharist in a more personal and intimate home setting.

Paul’s second experience in the city of Philippi was less sanguine, at least at its beginning. As usual, Paul’s activities were anything but low-key. He attracted the attention of a deeply troubled woman who was being marketed as a fortuneteller for the financial benefit of the men exploiting her. Finally, losing patience with her incessant if not hostile heckling, Paul exploded and cast the (evil) spirit out of her, as Luke describes it. With the woman’s deprograming, her handlers—as we would call them today—lost a much-desired source of income and staged a public ruckus, falsely accusing Paul and Silas of causing a civil disturbance. Interestingly, to support their charges they pointed to the alleged perpetrators as Jews, thus appealing to rather blatant anti-Semitism, even in those days. That is where the story picks up in today’s scripture passage. 

The Acts are filled with stories of prison breaks and here is still another account. Jailers are usually portrayed quite favorably in these stories in Acts, more as pawns themselves and victims of the system than as sinister characters in their own right. In this story the jailer emerges as something of a hero. Paul and Silas had been flogged with many lashes—no minor punishment, to be sure, in the ancient world. It is the jailer, Luke tells us, who washes their wounds. Unfortunately, the today’s readings don’t cover the ending of the story, how Paul turns the tables entirely on these city officials who sided with the corrupt exploiters of that helpless woman and tried to suppress the word of God. The trick Paul pulled to win the day will be utilized again at the very end of Acts. To find out what this is, you’ll have to read the end of Chapter 16 of Acts.
—Walter Modrys SJ

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.