Attentive to the Spirit's Instructions

In today's first reading, Acts 8: 26-40, we meet Philip, a deacon who had been appointed to oversee the distribution of food to poor widows in the Jerusalem church (Acts 6: 1-7). He was a man familiar with the Scriptures and very open to the Spirit directing his daily life.  His spending time studying the Scriptures and becoming familiar with them led to his ability to discern the Spirit's presence in his life and what the spirit was asking of him.

This particular day, we are told, an "angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, 'Get up and head south on the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, the desert route.' So he got up and set out!"  Would you, would I, be that obedient?   Would you, would I, have immediately dropped everything and set out on a desert route, no less? To begin with, would we, in the midst of our busy day, even have heard the angel's whispering voice?

When Philip sees ahead of him a chariot in which an Ethiopian eunuch is reading aloud from the prophet Isaiah,  the Spirit said to Philip: "Go and join up with that chariot.' Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said 'Do you understand what you are reading?' He replied, 'How can I, unless someone instructs me?' So he invited Philip to get in and sit with him." The eunuch, then, asked Philip to explain the passage to him, a passage about Jesus being "led to slaughter like a sheep."   Following Philip's explanation and approaching water, the eunuch asked to be baptized!

Note, again, how the Spirit gives Philip clear instructions. "Go...join that chariot!" God is just as direct with  us. The Spirit's instructions in our lives may sound something like this:  "Put the paper down and play with your child." "Turn off the TV and help your son with homework!"  "Help your wife in preparing the evening meal." "Go to your daughter's/granddaughter's basketball game." "Go straight home." "Do your homework!" "Spend more time with your family/community persons/fellow priests." "Don't get involved with that person." "Don't go there!" "You are jeopardizing your marriage (or any commitment)." "You are not living up to your vows (in any vocation)."  And so on!

Am I, are you,  discerning good spirits from bad spirits? Am I, are you,  listening to the Spirit? Am I, are you, doing that which opens your heart to God's instructions: reading the Scriptures on a daily basis, taking time to be quiet and attentive to the Spirit's voice, looking over each day reflectively and prayerfully? Am I, are you, striving to do what is right and avoid that which you know for certain is not what God is asking of you?

Behold the Lamb of God

In today's first reading, i John 3: 7-10, St. John says to us: "Children, let no one deceive you. The person who acts in righteousness is righteous, just as he [Jesus] is righteous. Whoever sins belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the beginning. Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the Devil. No one who is begotten by God commits sin, because God's seed remains in him [her]; he [she] cannot sin because he [she] is begotten by God.  In this way the children of God and the children of the Devil are made plain; no one who fails to act in righteousness belongs to God, nor anyone who does not love his brother [sister]."

The questions that I need to ask myself are:

Am I allowing myself to be deceived?
Am I attempting to deceive myself or others by my words or actions or by my silence or failure to act?
Am I acting righteously, as Jesus is righteous? Or am I unjust/unfair in how I relate to people?
To whom do I belong?

This last question is a hard one but one that I need to consider!   When I involve myself in sinful behaviors and attitudes, I am not acting as a child of God but as a child of Satan, as were Adam and Eve in the act of original sin!  Thank God that Jesus has been sent into this world "to destroy the works of the Devil."  For those who cling to Jesus and who return to Jesus in humility and repentance following a sinful act, "the works of the Devil" are destroyed in them. Unfortunately, there are times when we are deaf and blind to our sinfulness and need prayers that we will grow in our awareness of when we have closed our ears and our eyes to sin at work within us. And that is why St. John the Baptist, in today's Gospel,  John 1: 35-42, says to us: "Behold, the Lamb of God."  May we, like the disciples who heard John, follow Jesus and stay with Him as our Savior, ass they did!