“Let all the earth cry out to God with joy!” proclaims today’s responsorial psalm. This is the will of the Father, that all may know his son, his love and his salvation, “that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
Today’s first reading from Acts of the Apostles reminds us that those who have encountered the Risen Christ are set free. They are not bound down by fears, rules or expectations. Not even prisons can contain their indomitable spirits. Ironically, it’s Saul’s desire to imprison and suppress the faith that causes it to spread further throughout the confines of the earth, as those who scattered went about preaching the word to new lands.
We know that Saul, later known as Paul, would have a dramatic conversion and would become one of the greatest preachers of the Good News. What wonderful hope there is in his story! How the Lord can change our heart in its most hardened and misguided of areas and transform us to become heralds of the Good News.
Today, let us ask the Lord to enter the deepest and darkest confines of our hearts, to guide us that through our actions and our words, we may bring to others the news of eternal life, and all the earth might cry out to God with joy!