Word to the Wise
Thursday, April 24, 2025 - Octave of Easter - Thurs
[Acts 3:11-26 and Luke 24:35-48]"These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, "Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things." [Luke]
I'm sure I may have told this story before, but I think it is worth a repeat. When I was a "student brother" (Dominican word for "seminarian"), one of my fellow student brothers had a little sign on his door which had in BIG print the word: REPENT!!!*. The asterisk directed attention to a line at the bottom of the sign that said, "If you have already repented, kindly disregard this message!" Can we ever disregard it?
Repentance is more than the temporary relief we receive in the Sacrament of Reconciliation! It means a whole attitude of faith and effort to live as Christ has taught us. Jesus asks earlier in the Gospel According to Luke, "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' but do not do what I command?" Repentance means a constant and consistent effort at "course correction" to "put skin on" repentance. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is one important element but not the only one. Christian faith is about more than mistakes and sins. It is about God's promise and its fulfillment in Christ, which we are called to preach as the first scriptures from the Acts of the Apostles proclaim that we hear during the Octave of Easter. Do our lives and actions reflect faith in the resurrection of the Lord? Is a Christian life worth living? Are our minds "opened to the scriptures?" Repentance is a big truth that summons us to a big life! AMEN