Exiit qui seminat

In the first reading this Sunday from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear a pretty big dilemma in the life of the early Church and speaks of the tension between Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews): ‘Did new disciples have to become Jewish before they became Christian?’ This was a REALLY important question from males who didn’t grow up Jewish (if you know what I mean). The Jewish religious practice of circumcision was a symbol of the covenant between the Lord and Abraham – that the Jewish people were set apart by God as His own. Jewish Christians felt that such practices were necessary part of the expression of Christian faith and the life of the Church. However, as Easter reminds us, the Paschal Mystery, Jesus’ Passion, Death and Resurrection, forged a new and eternal covenant which not only replaces the covenants of old, but fulfills them. That the Church’s mission, while having the obligations demanded by Divine Love, is not a burdensome one, but freeing. As the faith is entrusted to us, let us not worry about extraneous things but rather on “doing what is right” and living in God’s love.