for May 6
Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

As we continue our readings from the Acts of the Apostles about life in the early Church, the topical sentence of today’s reading is the opening one: The Word of God continued to spread and grow. This of course implies but subordinates directly human preaching. The locale for the passage is Antioch which had a thriving community of believers, perhaps because it did not suffer from the threats and oppression of the mother Church in Jerusalem which here and elsewhere needed to be helped out financially. Antioch in fact as you may recall is where the believers were first called Christians.

As the community there was gathered at worship, they experience the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit we invoke whenever we celebrate Eucharist. This results in a missioning ceremony for Paul and Barnabas which, in the context of prayer and fasting, involves the laying on or imposition of hands as still practiced today at ordinations and other rituals. So missioned by the congregation, they go forth sent by the Holy Spirit to begin what is traditionally known as the first of Paul’s missionary journeys. Proclaiming the Word of God, they will travel primarily in the region of Galatia where subsequently Paul’s letter to the Galatians will be sent.

The Gospel finds Jesus once more stressing the link between himself and the Father, in that whoever believes in him and all that he proclaims also believes, indeed must believe, in the Father who sent him. Moreover, whoever sees Jesus, back then even physically, sees the Father, encounters and is in touch with him spiritually, as is still our desire today. Jesus is referenced again as the light of the world, the light that does away with the darkness of sin, but also in these days as when we ask Jesus to be present in the darkness of the fear and sadness in our world. Jesus then repeats that wonderful consoling message that he comes not to condemn but to save the world.

After that Jesus seems almost redundant in indicating that he says what the Father commanded him, and then refers to what was commanded as granting eternal life. The commandment in John is love, the love of God and neighbor that enables us to share in eternal life, divine love even now.

Recently I came across something that Franciscan Daniel Horan wrote about what Jesuit Karl Rahner said years ago. Rahner argues we have for too long bifurcated these two expressions of love, as if what we do for God is one thing and what we do for our sisters and brothers in the world is another. Let me conclude with what Rahner said in 1965:

The love of neighbor is not merely the preparation for the love of God but an act of this love of God itself, an act within that total believing and hoping surrender to God which we call love and which really unites man with God, not as God is recognized by us but as God is in Himself in absolute divinity.

—Edward O’Donnell SJ.

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