Community life can sometimes be challenging and difficult, but it’s definitively beautiful, exciting and funny. As a missionary living in international and intercultural communities, one of the most beautiful, exciting and funniest moments for me has always been the time for the house chores and at table. It was during these moments, not through long academic lectures that I learned some of the daily guiding principles which allow you to experience peace and stillness.
At table for example when a companion chose the bigger slice of bread or the bigger piece of cake, chicken or meat, in a fraternal way and with a sense of humor we used to remind each other some of those basic etiquettes that make common life even more enjoyable. For example, “Partage strict et équitable” (Fair and sheer sharing), or “Heureux les derniers si les premiers sont généreux”(Happy are the last if the first were generous [in serving themselves]).
In his Acts of the Apostles, Saint Luke describes how lived the apostles and the nascent Christian community (Acts 4: 32-35). Because of their common faith in the Risen Christ, they gather together on the first day of the week, “listening to the Word and breaking of the bread.”
Saint Luke’s description of the early Christian community’s etiquette is pretty ideal: everybody obeys God’s law, nobody says: “What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine, too.” Rather, they share everything in common; every time one of them sold something, the proceeds were equitably distributed among all the group and everybody listened to and followed obediently everything that the apostles said and taught; no tension, no problem, no grief. Life in the early Christian community is definitively beautiful, exciting and perhaps funny, too.
However, my experience says that life is not quite ideal. Why? Because our families and communities are made up of human beings and none of us is perfect. There are bound to be difficulties and misunderstandings wherever there are people. Things are not ideal.
But why did Luke describe the early Christian community in such ideal terms? He was describing what life in a community that believes in the resurrection of Jesus Christ could be. He is telling us what the effect of the Risen Lord could and perhaps should be on day to day life of Jesus’ followers. But again the ideal, the final effect is not yet achieved; it’s something that we hope and work for. But it’s realistic to hope for such a life.
The author of the first letter of John thinks so (1 Jn 5: 1-6). He holds on the hope that the daily activities of Jesus’ followers can be different. Why? Because for the children of God, every day activities are to reflect the reality of who they are, namely children of God who live together in love obeying the commandments. And he adds that this is possible because of the power of the Holy Spirit who witnesses to the truth in our lives.
And therein lays the challenge for each one of us as we continue to celebrate Easter and the new life won for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus. We are challenged to let that life shine in our daily lives, for this is what means to be Christians. It’s not easy as we know from our experience. But in faith we believe that it’s possible. Indeed, if Christ can enter a house when its doors are locked, can’t he also build communities of believers who are of one heart and mind, and that have everything in common and share everything like the early Christian community?
The Risen Christ appears to his fearful apostles, except perhaps the unbelieving Thomas, the great absent today (Jn 20: 19-31). He does not receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and will have to wait until Pentecost, the time for his faith mature. Eight days later, the Risen Christ appears again, this time Thomas is present. Jesus greets his apostles with peace as he did eight days earlier, and then tells Thomas and we too that the secret of happiness lies in “blind faith.”
“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed”, Jesus says to the unbelieving Thomas who wants to touch the wounds of Jesus. Thomas wants to see the mark of the nails in Jesus’ hands and put his finger into the nail marks and put his hand into Jesus’ side. What about us today? We do not see and we do not believe either. Oh, what miserable men and women we are!
The time of the Church in which we are now it’s no longer the time for attempting to touch the wounds of the Risen Lord; rather it’s the time to allow again the Risen Christ to touch the wounds of our unbelief and sins that so often lock our hearts. Living in societies where the hearts of many people are gripped by fear and desperation; where the joy of living frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is increasingly evident, we long to hear the comforting words with which the Risen Lord reaffirmed the faith of his fearful Apostles: “Peace be with you!”
Our world longs for peace, our families long for peace. I have in mind the many broken families and separated couples; the many refugees driven away from their homeland because of civil war or harsh life conditions due to an economy of exclusion and inequality, greed and avarice; I have in mind the many families and the friends of the students who were recently massacred by Shabab terrorists at Garissa University in Kenya and the many other victims of Boko Haram in West Africa and the ISIL in the Middle East and around the Arabic peninsula.
As in every Eucharist that we celebrate in memory of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, today again we will offer each other a sign of peace before receiving the Risen Lord in the Holy Communion. And later the priest will dismiss us by saying: “Go in the peace of Christ.” Let us pray that we always feel the peace of Christ all the days of your life; amid the toils and anxieties of our daily lives may we always be of one heart and mind. May we become instruments of Christ's peace, bringing it wherever we go and leaving it wherever we have been.
And as we celebrate the Sunday of Divine Mercy today, we give thanks to the Lord for his mercy endures forever (Ps 118). Let us open our hearts to the fountain of divine mercy that flows from the pierced heart of Christ and learn to be compassionate and merciful like himself, our Lord and our God. He gives us his peace and breathes on us the Holy Spirit. And so, we renew again our faith in him humbly telling him: “Jesus, I trust in you.”
