St. Anthony the Abbot Catholic Church

We want to congratulate all our young children receiving their first Holy Communion today. May the joy they have this day remain with them all their lives.

 

The Book of Acts presents us with a phrase that, in its proper context, is very strange. Peter and the other Apostles had been preaching the Good News of Jesus in the Temple courtyards for a few days after Pentecost, and the number of Christians was steadily increasing. Finally, the authorities in Jerusalem had had enough, so they threw the Apostles in jail.

 

That night, God's angel miraculously set them free and commanded them to return to the Temple the next day to continue preaching, which they did. When the authorities heard about this, they were furious and immediately had Peter and his gang arrested again. That's the context for the conversation we just listened to, in which Peter is ordered to stop preaching about Christ. After that conversation and before the Apostles were released, two other things occurred that are mentioned in the Book of Acts, but not in the section we just listened to.

 

After Peter gave witness to his faith and refused the order to stop preaching, the Apostles were taken out of the courtroom and the authorities argued among themselves. Finally, they decided to give the Apostles one more warning, then have them flogged, and then let them go. At this point, the strange phrase appears: we read that the Apostles "left the presence of the Sanhedrin [the authorities], rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name."

 

They walk out of prison for the second time, on probation, bleeding and wounded after having been whipped and humiliated, and they were rejoicing. Would you or I be rejoicing after that? We find it hard enough to put up with a headache! To rejoice in suffering for the sake of Christ is a sign of Christian maturity.

 

Immature love wants to get things, like children, who are always looking for candy from their parents. Mature love wants to give, to give of itself - and self-giving means self-sacrifice. When our love for Christ is mature, we are glad to suffer for His sake, just as He was glad to bear His cross for our sake.

 

May 1st we celebrate the memorial of St Joseph. Let us reflect on this feast now. To foster deep devotion to Saint Joseph among Catholics, and in response to the “May Day” celebrations for workers sponsored by Communists, Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker in 1955. This feast extends the long relationship between Joseph and the cause of workers in both Catholic faith and devotion. Beginning in the Book of Genesis, the dignity of human work has long been celebrated as a participation in the creative work of God. By work, humankind both fulfills the command found in Genesis to care for the earth (Gn 2:15) and to be productive in their labors. Saint Joseph, the carpenter and foster father of Jesus, is but one example of the holiness of human labor.

 

Jesus, too, was a carpenter. He learned the trade from Saint Joseph and spent His early adult years working side-by-side in Joseph’s carpentry shop before leaving to pursue His ministry as preacher and healer. In his encyclical Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II stated: “the Church considers it her task always to call attention to the dignity and rights of those who work, to condemn situations in which that dignity and those rights are violated, and to help to guide [social] changes so as to ensure authentic progress by man and society.”

 

Saint Joseph is held up as a model of such work. Pius XII emphasized this when he said, “The spirit flows to you and to all men from the heart of the God-man, Savior of the world, but certainly, no worker was ever more completely and profoundly penetrated by it than the foster father of Jesus, who lived with Him in closest intimacy and community of family life and work.”