Replies

From: Acts 5:17-26

The Apostles Are Arrested and Miraculously Freed

[17] But the high priest rose up and all who were with him, that is, the party of
the Sadducees, and filled with jealousy [18] they arrested the Apostles and put
them in the common prison. [19] But at night an angel of the Lord opened the
prison doors and brought them out and said, [20] “Go and stand in the temple
and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” [21] And when they heard
this, they entered the temple at daybreak and taught.

Now the high priest came and those who were with him and called together the
council and all the senate of Israel, and sent (officers) to the prison to have them
brought. [22] But when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison and
they returned and reported, [23] “We found the prison securely locked and the
sentries standing at the doors, but when we opened it we found no one inside.”
[24] Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words,
they were much perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to. [25]
And some one came and told them, “The men whom you put in prison are stan-
ding in the temple and teaching the people.”

The Apostles Before the Sanhedrin

[26] Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but without vio-
lence, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people.

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

19. In Sacred Scripture we meet angels as messengers of God and also as me-
diators, guardians and ministers of divine justice. Abraham sent his servant on a
mission to his kindred and told him, “The Lord will send his angel before you and
prosper your way” (Genesis 24:7, 40). Tobit, Lot and his family, Daniel and his
companions, Judith, etc., also experienced the help of angels. The Psalms refer
to trust in the angels (cf. Psalm 34:8; 91:11-13) and the continuous help they
render men in obedience to God’s command.

This episode of the freeing of the Apostles is one of the examples the “St. Pius
V Catechism” gives to illustrate “the countless benefits which the Lord distri-
butes among men through angels, His interpreters and ministers, sent only in
isolated cases but appointed from our birth to watch over us, and constituted for
the salvation of every individual person” (IV, 9, 6).

This means, therefore, that the angels should have a place in a Christian’s per-
sonal piety: “I ask our Lord that, during our stay on this earth of ours, we may
never be parted from our Divine Traveling Companion. To ensure this, let us also
become firmer friends of the Holy Guardian Angels. We all need a lot of compa-
ny, company from Heaven and company on earth. Have great devotion to the
Holy Angels” (St. J. Escriva, “Friends of God”, 315).

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: John 3:16-21

The Visit of Nicodemus (Continuation)

(Jesus said to Nicodemus,) [16] “For God so loved the world that He gave His on-
ly Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. [17]
For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world
might be saved through Him. [18] He who believes in Him is not condemned; He
who does not believe is condemned already, because He has not believed in the
name of the only Son of God. [19] And this is the judgment, that the light has
come into world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds
were evil. [20] For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to
the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. [21] But he who does what is true
comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought
in God.”

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

16-21. These words, so charged with meaning, summarize how Christ’s death is
the supreme sign of God’s love for men (cf. the section on charity in the “Introduc-
tion to the Gospel according to John”: pp. 31ff above). “’For God so loved the
world that He gave His only Son’ for its salvation. All our religion is a revelation of
God’s kindness, mercy and love for us. ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:16), that is, love
poured forth unsparingly. All is summed up in this supreme truth, which explains
and illuminates everything. The story of Jesus must be seen in this light. ‘(He)
loved me’, St. Paul writes. Each of us can and must repeat it for himself — ‘He
loved me, and gave Himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20)” (Paul VI, “Homily on Cor-
pus Christi”, 13 June 1976).

Christ’s self-surrender is a pressing call to respond to His great love for us: “If it
is true that God has created us, that He has redeemed us, that He loves us so
much that He has given up His only-begotten Son for us (John 3:16), that He
waits for us — every day! — as eagerly as the father of the prodigal son did (cf.
Luke 15:11-32), how can we doubt that He wants us to respond to Him with all
our love? The strange thing would be not to talk to God, to draw away and forget
Him, and busy ourselves in activities which are closed to the constant promp-
tings of His grace” (St. J. Escriva, “Friends of God”, 251).

“Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for
himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encoun-
ter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not partici-
pate intimately in it. This [...] is why Christ the Redeemer ‘fully reveals man to
himself’. If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mys-
tery of the Redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity
and value that belong to his humanity. [...] The one who wishes to understand
himself thoroughly [...] must, with his unrest and uncertainty and even his weak-
ness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to
speak, enter into Him with all his own self, he must ‘appropriate’ and assimilate
the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself.
If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of
adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself.

How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he ‘gained so great a
Redeemer’, (”Roman Missal, Exultet” at Easter Vigil), and if God ‘gave His only
Son’ in order that man ‘should not perish but have eternal life’. [...]

‘Increasingly contemplating the whole of Christ’s mystery, the Church knows
with all the certainty of faith that the Redemption that took place through the
Cross has definitively restored his dignity to man and given back meaning to his
life in the world, a meaning that was lost to a considerable extent because of sin.
And for that reason, the Redemption was accomplished in the paschal mystery,
leading through the Cross and death to Resurrection” (Bl. John Paul II, “Redemp-
tor Hominis”, 10).

Jesus demands that we have faith in Him as a first prerequisite to sharing in His
love. Faith brings us out of darkness into the light, and sets us on the road to
salvation. “He who does not believe is condemned already” (verse 18).

“The words of Christ are at once words of judgment and grace, of life and death.
For it is only by putting to death that which is old that we can come to newness
of life. Now, although this refers primarily to people, it is also true of various world-
ly goods which bear the mark both of man’s sin and the blessing of God. [...] No
one is freed from sin by himself or by his own efforts, no one is raised above him-
self or completely delivered from his own weakness, solitude or slavery; all have
need of Christ, who is the model, master, liberator, savior, and giver of life. Even
in the secular history of mankind the Gospel has acted as a leaven in the inte-
rests of liberty and progress, and it always offers itself as a leaven with regard
to brotherhood, unity and peace” (Vatican II, “Ad Gentes”, 8).

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.