It is the time of year when we celebrate young people concluding their studies and graduating from either high school or college. The celebration of graduation often is called “commencement,” and for very good reasons. The graduates will commence a new life where they will apply the methods and means that they have spent the last 12 years (high school) or 16 years (college) acquiring. In the same way, the Church finishes the Easter season today reflecting on the mysteries of the apostolic church (Acts 28:16-20, 30-31) and the saving promise and invitation of the Lord at the end of his life (John 21:20-25). These endings invite us to our own ‘commencement’, beginning again a new life in the Lord by learning his lessons and then following his lead so that this will lead us to loving him more.
The Church has stated that the two greatest feasts are Easter and Pentecost. You would expect a special celebration on the day before the great feast marking the birthday of the church. After all, Christmas has Christmas Eve, “the night before Christmas when all through the house. . .”. Even All Saints Day has a demonized celebration, Halloween, the night before. Easter has the Easter Vigil where we celebrate our salvation history. But there is no “Day before Pentecost” celebration. (OK, the Orthodox Christians celebrate the Saturday for Souls.) Instead, the texts chosen for today’s Mass emphasize the end of the Easter season by citing the last words of the Acts of the Apostles and the final words in John’s gospel. The last words of John’s witness to the life and times of Jesus invite his readers to be filled with the Spirit of God that Jesus promised us, as we continue to live our Christian lives. The last words of Acts, on the other hand, are sometime after the first Pentecost (which is described in chapter two). In them, the early church moves gently from the time of Jesus’ teaching and preaching to the time of the apostolic church witnessing.
These readings were chosen for this Saturday before Pentecost because they wrap up the series of readings from Acts and John that we have been following during these seven weeks of the Easter season. Because that last page of Acts often gets overlooked, let’s make that our focus today.
Luke has been telling the story of Paul’s final trip, the storm-tossed voyage to Rome, with a fruitful stop on the Island of Malta. He devotes the last 14 verses to Paul’s evangelization of his fellow Jews while under house arrest in Rome for two years. By the time he wrote Acts, both Luke and his readers knew that Paul died a martyr’s death in Rome. So why didn’t Luke include that part? After all, he took pains to highlight other ways that Paul’s ministry paralleled that of Jesus—the healings and the trials before Jewish and Roman officials. So why not include in the narrative Paul’s martyrdom. That is such an obvious question, that we can be sure Luke expected we readers to ask it, and to come up with some kind of answer for ourselves. Here is mine.
Ending this story of the early Christian movement here, when Paul, still physically constrained by the conditions of house arrest, continues to proclaim the kingdom of God and teach about the Lord Jesus Christ. His final words, “Let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen,” still ring and makes this the perfect place for Luke’s (mainly Gentile) readers—including us—to plug in.
It provokes the observation, “Hey, the story doesn’t end here.” And that leads quickly to the realization, “Right! The story continues—and includes us!” This whole two-volume work, the Third Gospel and the Acts, which Luke calls “a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us” (Luke 1:1), is indeed just as much about us as it is about Jesus and the early Church, for we belong to that same faith community that claims Jesus as our risen Lord and find ourselves animated by the same Spirit to continue Jesus’ mission of preaching and healing.How encouraging to hear Luke describe Paul, under house arrest, still enabled to carry out that mission “with complete assurance and without hindrance” (Acts 28:31)! Let none of us claim that our situation doesn’t allow us to share our faith with a similar zeal. The words at the end of the Latin Mass are “Ite, Missa est!”. Translated as “Go, you are being sent …” to carry out the mission of the Lord as you have just heard it proclaimed.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!