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.

This coming Sunday, the first reading is going to be the recounting of the proclamation of the

gospel by the Apostle Peter in such a way that we're told that the hearts of those who heard

him were pierced.

And they asked, what should we do in response to this? And he leads them to

repent and to be baptized, and we're told that there's 3,000 that joined their number. I found

myself not only reflecting on that description of how the crowds responded to Peter this morning,

but having something of the same response

myself. So it's interesting that the crowd's hearts are pierced by what Peter says. They're

not condemned. They're not made to feel bad. They're not provoked to anger or defensiveness

or merely some sense of guilt, they're convicted,

which is a movement of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus had told us shortly before he went to his passion that he would send the Spirit,

and one of the things the Spirit would do is convict with regards to sin. So what's it like to be convicted? Well, for me, I might

describe it as, it's like standing in an intense light where something is revealed to me,

and I'm not made to, I can't hide hide like it's just there like I have to acknowledge

...