21 May 2022
Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter
How do we respond to failure? When things do not go according our plans or results do not meet our expectations, how do we respond? Do we give up? Do we get angry? Do we make rash decisions as we consider that we will never be able to accomplish anything? Do we take on catastrophic thinking by assuming that everything we have done or will ever do will be a failure? Reading today’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles, Paul and his companions faced multiple failures. They “traveled through the Phrygian and Galatian territory because they had been prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching the message… When they came to Mysia, they tried to go on into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” Then, Jesus warns his disciples in the Gospel today from the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.” We can look at the cross of Jesus, the central image of our faith, and see it as a massive failure. Our savior and our leader was put brutally to death and all of his friends left him. The world hated Jesus. And yet, we continue to this day to proclaim Christ crucified as our strength and our salvation! Paul and his companions, despite their many encounters with failure, persevered, continued to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and “Day after day the churches grew stronger in faith and increased in number.” May we gain strength and confidence in these instances of true faith. We are never failures as disciples of Jesus Christ. Pray with this faith-filled confidence!