In the report of the so-called Council of Jerusalem one line stood out: ‘It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities” which St. Luke says includes avoiding meat sacrified to idols and unlawful marriage. When St. Paul, writing thirty years earlier, talks about the same event he says the only “necessity” was to care for the poor. In the epistles Paul does talk about sacrificed meat and unlawful marriage so the problems these issues caused in the church in the intervening years made them necessities. For Catholics problems over the centuries have produed a whole list of things we consider necessary. We must never forget the one necessary thing: “love one another.”
MAY202022
By Church Staff
