Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 12, 2026: All who believed were together and had all things in common...

All who believed were together and had all things in common…
 Do we find our common identity in Christ? 

   When, in John’s Gospel, the resurrected Jesus appears to the disciples behind locked doors, he enters into a community of believers, but believers wracked by fear. Peace be with you, he says to them (twice). Jesus wants to put his faithful flock, those who have maintained their faith in him and remain true to him, at ease. Breathing on them, Jesus invites them into new life in him: Receive the Holy Spirit. This gift will allow the disciples to be the first community through whom God will be revealed; their faith – including Thomas’ – will allow them to believe past the limitations we normally place on our world, so that they might bring his mercy to that world. For this, they will, as Psalm 118 states, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love is everlasting. 

    It is the union that grows among this community of believers that we find depicted shortly thereafter, in the Acts of the Apostles. They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers, Luke tells us. That communal life becomes integral to their identity; the meals they share are celebratory, exultant, for in them they express true devotion to each other and and to the common good, growing in their identity as the Body of Christ. 

    By the time of the writing of the First Letter of Peter, the Christian community is one that has not known Jesus firsthand: although you have not seen him, you love him. Yet, through baptism, a new birth to a living hope, they too have been transformed through the death and rising of Jesus. Their communal identity develops both from the trials they are facing together and from their indescribable and glorious joy at knowing they are saved. Like this community, we have not seen Christ yet we love him. And like them, we too can give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love is everlasting!

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com