6 May 2020: Homily on Acts (12:24-13:5a):

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I wrote about a Board of Directors Monday.  That was not a Board of Directors as we know them.

We could also speak of a Board of Director in today’s reading.  This board, however, had a different agenda and a different mode of operating.  Here, the Board of Directors was the community with the Holy Spirit.  This community was worshiping and fasting, when the Holy Spirit spoke, “Set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”  The community at worship was not suspicious, but open to action.

Our community usually gathers before an altar, in a chapel, in a given place.  Our community, at this present time, cannot gather as we usually do.  We are, however, not bounded by walls and ceiling.  We are gatherted by faith and charity.  We can gather for worship and sacred action where we are, in our separated houses.

We make up this community.  In this community we have a message from the Holy Spirit.  We are to set apart for the Lord, this one and that one, for the work to which the Holy Spirit has called each.’”

Each of us has been given work to do by the Holy Spirit in this time of stress and distress.  Barnabas and Saul set out for Seleucia and Cyprus.  How and where is each one of us sent, today, tomorrow, next time?

Some see the pandemic of the coronavirus as a negative thing, a punishment for sin, from an angry God.  I prefer to see it differently.  The distress of the virus is a positive thing, sent by a loving God, as an opportunity.  We gather in faith and charity to worship and fast under the direction of the Holy Spirit.  We can follow a call to work given us by the Holy Spirit.  We are not confined to our Antioch; we are sent to Seleucia and Cyprus to proclaim the word of God by the work we do.