Thursday, 7 May 2026 – 5th week of Easter
H O M I L Y
Jesus’ final instruction to His apostles, during the Last Supper He shared with them, is a call to brotherly love. Similarly, the accounts in the Acts of the Apostles that we read during this Easter season show us how this brotherly love is lived out in practice, within a community, through relationships that are not always necessarily easy. Indeed, this love is sometimes lived out through the resolution of conflicts.
The reading from the Acts of the Apostles that we have just heard is a fine example of this. This text describes part of the deliberations of the first Ecumenical Council, that of Jerusalem.
The theme of this Jerusalem Assembly was, to put it in contemporary terms, that of inculturation. The Christian faith is necessarily inculturated. It is not merely the intellect’s assent to revealed truths. It is the translation of the Gospel message into everyday life. And since the Gospel message is not addressed to isolated individuals but to a community of believers, faith therefore necessarily has a cultural dimension. So much so that inculturation, far from being a modern concern, is an essential dimension of faith. Jesus had lived and carried out his ministry within the Jewish cultural sphere. As soon as his message was transmitted to the nations, the problem of inculturation arose acutely from the very beginning; and the Acts of the Apostles describe the first resolution of this problem.
On the Day of Pentecost, the Apostles addressed the Jews of Jerusalem and those who had come from all parts of the diaspora, each of whom heard them in their own language. It was only after Stephen’s death and the onset of the first persecution that the deacon Philip brought the Gospel to Samaria. When Paul began his preaching, he upset everyone so much that from Damascus they had him brought to Jerusalem by night, and from Jerusalem they sent him to Tarsus, from whence he had come. Then the vision Peter had in Joppa before his encounter with Cornelius revealed to him that the Law of Israel had been superseded and could not be applied to the Gentiles, upon whom the Spirit of God also descended. Finally, when word reached Jerusalem of the marvellous fruits of the first evangelisation in Antioch, Barnabas was sent there, and he then had the brilliant idea of going to Tarsus to fetch Paul, who had been sent back there rather rudely. The entire history of Christianity would undoubtedly have been radically different had Barnabas not taken this initiative.
One final point remains to be mentioned, to complete the picture in which the account we have just read is set. The fact is that, from the very beginning, at the head of the Church in Jerusalem stood not one of the twelve Apostles, but a certain James, the Lord’s brother – no doubt a cousin of Jesus – who embodied the proclamation of the Gospel to the Jews just as much as Paul embodied this proclamation to the Gentiles. We now have all the key figures in place. What was the problem?
A conflict had arisen in Antioch where Christians of Jewish origin, having come from Jerusalem, wanted to impose on converts from paganism the requirement to follow the Law of Moses and to be circumcised. So in Jerusalem we find the Apostles, gathered around Peter, then Paul and Barnabas, sent by the Christians of Antioch, and finally the Elders of Jerusalem, gathered around James, the Lord’s brother and Bishop of Jerusalem. The discussion had become heated, Luke tells us in his account. It was then that Peter intervened, with all the authority conferred upon him by his primacy. His intervention was followed by a moment of silence, after which his position was confirmed by Barnabas and Paul, who recounted the signs and wonders wrought by the Spirit of God among the Gentiles. And yet Peter’s view was not followed. The final decision of the Assembly will not be the one proposed by Peter, who does not wish to impose anything on converts from paganism; rather, it will be a compromise proposed by James, halfway between Peter’s position and that of the faithful of Pharisaic background, who would wish to impose the observance of the Law of Moses on everyone.
This example is full of instruction for us all. It teaches us, first of all, that discussions – and even heated discussions – are part of the oldest ecclesial tradition. It also teaches us that, contrary to what all forms of fundamentalism would have us believe, the rules of Christian life – and therefore also of monastic life – cannot be deduced in a purely logical and mathematical manner from abstract principles. The art of compromise is not merely an exercise in opportunistic politics; compromise is often required by the Gospel’s respect for differences.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit to establish and sustain this open-mindedness and this spirit of dialogue within our Order, in every community of our Order, in our Church and in our Society.
Armand VEILLEUX