May All the Peoples Praise You!

April 16, 2008

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

By Melanie Rigney

“While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’” (Acts 13:2)

“May the nations be glad and shout for joy … may the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you!” (Psalms 67:5,6)

“Jesus cried out and said, ‘Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me…’” (John 12:44-45)

Piety

Lord, thank you for the gift of Your Son and of hope. Guide the Holy Father as he shares Your words of love and obedience on his apostolic journey in the United States.

Study

Today's Readings

Benedict XVI’s Message

The pope is in our very midst today, paying a courtesy visit to President Bush this morning; meeting with U.S. cardinals, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and charitable organizations this afternoon; and celebrating vespers late in the afternoon at the National Shrine. Later on the trip, he will address the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.

Benedict XVI chose “Christ our hope” as the theme for this apostolic journey. In his advance message, the pope noted, “…the world has greater need of hope than ever: hope for peace, for justice, and for freedom, but this hope can never be fulfilled without obedience to the law of God, which Christ brought to fulfillment in the commandment to love one another. Do to others as you would have them do to you, and avoid doing what you would not want them to do.”

Indeed, hope has been a key theme for our pope. Last November, his second encyclical, “Saved By Hope,” focused on our understanding of Christian hope, the hope that allows us to face the present with confidence:

We need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of himself as the embodiment of this hope, a hope that is almost too good to believe without a human face: “Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me, and whoever sees me sees the one who sent me.” Today’s first reading, from Acts, shows how quickly the fire can spread when we hope. With hope and the help of the Holy Spirit, Paul and Barnabas begin the first Christian missionary effort in Asia Minor, a shining example of the psalmist’s call for “all the peoples” to praise God. For without God, there is no hope. Let us delight in spreading the news to others.

Action

Where has hope taken you recently? Contemplate this as you attend Thursday’s papal Mass at Nationals Park or watch coverage of the journey on television. Or, talk with a non-Catholic friend, family member, or work colleague in a loving, respectful way about what the pope’s theme of “Christ our hope” means to you and your faith journey.