Fall off your horse May 5

Prayer

Good morning, Jesus. Sometimes when you look upon us your servants, you see people with divergent ideas about how best to follow you. Other times, you see us saying we are your followers pre-occupied with other duties.

Jesus, please show us Your Way of unity. Help us to turn away from those activities that pre-occupy us and that destroy your Kingdom on earth. Set us on the right path to build your Kingdom. Open our eyes from our spiritual blindness to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic mission of our Church. Make us realize that we are not progressives and traditionalists. We are not liberals and conservatives. We are not the right and the left. We are Christians. There is no either-or message in your commandment to Love.

Give us the trust and courage to help You heal the world of its blindness. Help us to take the actions needed to bring people into one community – one community marked by our obedience in faith and our love for one another. Amen.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/050506.shtml

“Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” John 6:57

There is a unity expressed in today’s readings – unity of Jesus and the Father, unity of Jesus and those participate in the Eucharist, unity of Saul with the Christians after his conversion. The unity is not just inspired by Jesus but also guided by Him. Further, this unity does not come without risk.

Sometimes Jesus has to resort to dramatic means in order to get our attention. Saul was not part of the community. Jesus came to him but not in a gentle “peace be with you” manner. Jesus knocked Saul off his horse and blinded him physically to go along with the spiritual blindness of Saul’s life as a persecutor of Christians.

Other times, he comes to us more gently but with a tough mission nonetheless. That’s what happened as we see Jesus coming to Ananias and guiding him to visit Saul. Despite his faith, Ananias doesn’t want to go. He fears that he will risk arrest or death because of Saul’s authority. Jesus reassures Ananias that Saul is his instrument and instills in him the confidence and trust to carry out this mission of Christian action and healing.

Through Jesus, Saul and Ananias come together as one. After Saul is healed, he becomes one with the community through baptism.

Action

Fall off your horse today.

What is one of your strongly held views? What if you are wrong? Allow yourself to fall off your horse and take a different viewpoint today. How does that new view affect other things in your life?