Tuesday, April 01, 2008

The community of believers was of one heart and mind

Today's reading from Acts 4:32.37 begins with a most important line: "The community of believers was of one heart and mind,..."

We rarely ponder the origins of anything anymore. How did a community come into existence? How did they become of one heart and mind? The human event, the gathering principle, at the beginning of all cultures, of all peoples, and of all times had been so powerful, so cathartic, so as to bring all to one heart and mind was always at the expense of the sacrificial victim. Check it out by picking up Gil Bailie's book, Violence Unveiled and reading it today.

So the text is telling us that something new has begun with this small band of believers.

"With great power the Apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,..."

A new calling has gone out to rally people together under one heart and mind and that is Our Lord and Risen Savior, Jesus Christ.

There IS something new here.

1 comment:

Athos said...

Yes, and it is something incredibly new, tho' it is (only) two thousand years old. The trouble is, it is faced with a two-fold expression of the primitive Sacred at a time when the West, at least, is in decline.

Strange, apocalyptic days indeed.