Hey, everybody. This is Father John Ricardo with Acts 29. And in the middle of all the craziness

and the uncertainty that's going on right now, it seems from our perspective as a team that it's

worth using these days to reflect in a more deliberate way on the scriptures every day, which

for many of us now is the only spiritual food that we're receiving. And so we're going to do a special podcast series simply entitled,

Be Not Afraid, God's Word in Uncertain Times.

And we'll try to post something every day, usually reflecting on the scriptures,

so that we can listen in on what God is trying to say to us in these days.

A quick reflection on the Psalm from today's Mass, some extraordinary words of Jesus,

and why many of us seem to be feeling as if those extraordinary words are not enough right now.

Those are the things on my mind on this Friday in this Easter

season as we continue to thank God for the gift of his son and all that he's accomplished for us,

even as we continue to live through this crazy time of social distancing and longing to get out

back into the world. So first the song. The Psalm is Psalm 27, and the refrain

is simply this, one thing I seek to dwell in the house of the Lord. And so there's this

persistent theme throughout the Psalms of this longing to be in God's presence, in a particular way,

the longing to see God's face and to be present with him in his temple, which, of course,

for the Jewish people, is the place where God and his people meet. And so as I was reflecting on that this morning and just

the ache that is evident in the psalmist in this Psalm that we have today for Mass, it got me

thinking about this simple truth. You and I, as disciples of Jesus, we have become the temple.

That's what St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 619.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the living God?

What's the big deal about that?

...