May 19 // 5th Sunday of Easter

Sunday, May 19

Reading I: Acts 14:21-27
Responsorial Psalm 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13
Reading II: Revelation 21:1-5a
Gospel:John 13:31-33a, 34-35

Paul, Barnabas, Prisca/Priscilla and Aquila blazed a spiritual trail as they spread the good news of Jesus’ ways to people in and around the places named in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. To get our spirits soaring, my husband and I traveled with the spiritual guru, Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM to those places and more not long ago. We stood in prayer in the very place where John wrote Revelations, walked the paths those fired-up followers of Jesus trod, and sat on marble seats in the amphitheaters where they tried to get Jesus’ message across.

The library’s façade still stands where Prisca and Aquila ministered with Paul after they risked their lives for Paul’s sake, after they taught the great orator Apollos more about Jesus, after Paul found refuge in their house-church in Corinth, and while they continued to minister as co-workers with Paul in Ephesus. (See Acts 16:1-3; 1 Corinthians 16:19; Romans 16:1-3; Acts 18: 18-26 and others.)

It is heartening to pray with Sacred Scripture and celebrate the spread of the faith we hold dear. Today throughout the entire world the scriptures proclaimed at every Mass move us to live our faith in such a way that we, like Paul, Barnabas, Prisca and Aquila, continue to strengthen the spirit of Jesus’ followers and encourage one another in faith today and every day.

How can we better bring faith everywhere we are? How inclusive is our love for one another?

Deni Mack, DMin.
Pastoral Associate