for May 23
Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter

I love Rubbermaid products, the Container Store, and any step-by-step color-coded system that promises to bring order to my life. Based on the opening lines of today’s reading, I suspect that the Evangelist Luke shares this weakness. Luke proposes to give us the ‘orderly sequence’ of Paul’s missionary travels, even as he tells a story that is more like the careening plot of Pirates of the Carribbean, filled with conflict, jailbreaks and shipwreck. The episode that follows today’s opening lines is a case in point, a reminder that relying on good order may fall short of the experience of grace.

Apollo is introduced to us as an authority on scripture, well-instructed and able in turn to teach accurately. That certainly sounds good and well-ordered. But Priscilla and Aquila, Paul’s companions and missionaries in their own right, recognize that Apollo is missing something. They take Apollo aside and only then does Luke say that he is able “to give great assistance to those who had come to believe through grace.”

What did Priscilla and Aquila say to Apollo? Or was it not just what they said, but something more than that? That Luke describes their interaction as explaining “the Way of God” suggests that Priscilla and Aquila shared not just an explanation, but their experience. Attractive and powerful as Apollo’s expertise, education and authority might have been, those things seem not to have been enough to bring his hearers to faith, or to sustain them in it. Companionship with other disciples, in a shared way of life, is what enables Apollo to minister to those who have experienced God’s grace.

Once again, it is not our human organization or effort, but the experience of grace that enlivens our belief.

Even knowing this, I find myself craving order lately. I vacuum and straighten up my apartment in hopes that a calm environment will foster a calmer spirit. I read way too many articles outlining the proper procedures for avoiding infection for myself and those I love. I stick to my routines and am tempted to put faith in my own efforts to establish good order in my life. But time and again, the Easter season scriptures challenge me: the Spirit doesn’t necessarily move along any course that I may plot.

As this particular Pentecost approaches, there is also rising pressure to ‘re-open’ our lives. This is a challenge to our faith community. It’s a time to ask, are we putting too much faith in our color-coded rules for engagement? In returning to routines like being in church together, are we relying more on familiar good order than on the unexpected ways the Spirit may be moving through our present experience?

This Easter and this quarantine have been a continual challenge to adapt to the unexpected—and that shows no signs of changing any time soon. Today’s reading from Acts is a timely reminder to allow ourselves also to be continually challenged to be open of God’s grace, which moves as it—not we—will.
—BJ Brown

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