Undusted Texts

Acts 9:32-42 Jn 5:1-15 Christ is risen!  Christ, the Risen One, is the One we should imitate as St. Peter did.  The other Prime Apostle wrote, "Imitate me, as I imitate Christ," yet the same words could be placed in the mouth of Peter.  For he very much did imitate the Lord: as the Lord healed the paralytic, so did Peter, and as the Lord commanded him to take up his pallet and walk, so did the Prime Apostle.  All miracles occur through the power of Jesus Christ, for "Jesus Christ heals you," but He may heal through His disciples, through those inflamed with His Spirit, inflamed with Him.  Have we not heard stories of countless saints, the testimony of the Spirit's working in the past, saints who healed many through their prayers and their blessings?  Have we not heard of many icons and spots of grace that have healed?  The chapel in Czestochowa has walls gilded with crutches, and the pools at Lourdes bestow healing on many.  Yet all of...

  Acts 6:1-7 Mk 15:43-16:8 Christ is risen!  Christos voskrese!  Χριστός ἀνέστη! "They said nothing to any one, for they were afraid."  These are the last words we have just heard from the Holy Scriptures: are they not puzzling?  On a day we celebrate those women who loved Our Lord so greatly, those women who were called to proclaim the glorious truth of His Resurrection, why do we end with words that deny their role?  They were called to go and tell the disciples, and yet instead they are mute.  The Apostle to the Apostles does not seem to act so today.  Why is this?  Why does the reading seem to contradict the feast? There is no way that a true contradiction exists, of course, for we trust the Church's Tradition, and it is this tradition that has formed the liturgical calendar.  She is not trying to undermine the feast, but to raise it up.  The ones who the Gospel tells us were too afraid to speak were later, and not...