In The Acts of the Apostles Peter and his companions look on their role as being witnesses. (The Greek word is martyros, which is the origin of the word martyr.) They are witnesses to what they had heard and seen: Jesus going about doing good and healing, the events of his suffering and death, the… Read More »

The Bible proclaims Jesus as the Universal Savior. That raises a question: how are those who are not explicitly Christian saved? Jesus told Nicodemus, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” We do not save ourselves by putting our names… Read More »

St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles has an idealized memory of the earliest Christians. The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and … they had everything in common. Apparently this form of “Christian communism” had already died out by Luke’s time and does not seem possible in our own. What is… Read More »

The readings for the fifty days of Easter are designed to help us understand Resurrection Life which the Bible describes as life in the Spirit. The first reading is taken from the Acts of the Apostles  where we see how different those followers of Jesus were after they received the Spirit. In the encounter with… Read More »

Thomas, called Didymus, must have gotten sick of being cooped up by fear. He was a bit braver than the others so he was willing to go to the 7-11 to pick up some chips and soda. You can imagine how excited the disciples were when Thomas came back into the room after his snack… Read More »

The spread of Christianity would be unbelievable if it hadn’t happened. The disgraced leader of the movement was executed with nothing to show for his efforts except a handful of “uneducated, ordinary” men and women. Yet, despite violent opposition, within a few generations Christians were widespread throughout the Roman world and within a few centuries… Read More »

You can imagine that the events of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection were an emotional roller coaster for the apostles. After things had calmed down they wanted to return to “normal.” Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” Good idea, they responded. However, as the Gospel reports they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t fish… Read More »

Certain text in the Bible are terrifying. For example, in the sermon St. Peter gives to the people of Jerusalem he says, “Now I know, brothers and sisters, that you acted out of ignorance.” It doesn’t take malice, it doesn’t take evil — acting in ignorance you can kill the son of God.  We tend… Read More »

Yesterday on a family zoom call my brother was bemoaning the state of the country. “I thought with the vaccine things would get better. I thought with a new president people would be kinder. When are we going to get back to normal?” The Bible certainly understands societal disaster but it also suggests we need… Read More »

In the Resurrection stories Jesus does not hang around. He dramatically appears to someone but does not let them “hold onto” him. Instead, he sends them back to the community. After greeting Mary Magdalene he tells her  “go to my brothers.” The gospels suggest that the only way we come to understand what resurrection means… Read More »