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.

On this final Easter weekday,

before we get to tomorrow's celebration of Pentecost,

the church gives us in the scriptures the conclusion to the gospel of John

and the conclusion to the acts of the apostles.

And as I'm thinking about Peter and Paul and their proclamation,

they're preaching, they're laying out for all those who heard them preach

a vision of reality, a proclamation of what it is that God is done for us in the person

of his son, Jesus. I want to share with you yet one last excerpt from this book that I've been

reading from off and on over the last 10 days or so, from Christendom to apostolic mission, because

it's in many ways a fitting conclusion to this season of Easter and a sending forth into

mission territory, which is our lives as disciples of Jesus. So I could easily picture St. Paul or St. Peter writing or

preaching these words. So this is again from this book. In coming to help and save humanity,

God did not just intervene from outside.

He conferred on us the high dignity of becoming one of us.

He arranged matters such that a human might have the honor of conquering the enemies of humanity.

...