continue to speak with boldness

Acts 4:23-31; Blessed are all who take refuge in the Lord; John 3:1-8

"Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body's force;
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill;
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:
But these particulars are not my measure;
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is better than..." shakespeare

Listen to the words of the Acts of the Apostles from today's mass...
"After their release Peter and John went back to their own people....as they prayed, the place where they gathered shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness."


Peter and John were arrested and dragged to court for preaching in the the name of Jesus. Society around them wanting nothing of this Jesus and the message. They tried to end it all; they tried to put a stop to it; they wanted to silence Peter and John.

Sounds a lot like today's society. How often is society at large seeking to silence the messagers of Christ?

How often are we discriminated agianst becasue we boast of Christ and proclaim his message to the world?

After Peter and John were warned to "never mention that man's name to anyone again," they went to report th ehostility they encountered and rather than folding under pressure and packing up and giving in they prayed for strength and the "place where they gathered "shook" and they were filled with the "Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness."


with boldness they continued to speak.


what a gift for us today. How we can learn from the apostles to garner strength in prayer and to never cower before hsotility and the clamoring voices of society. Peter and John understood that society needed what they were preaching.

To refuse to preach would to love them less.

As Shakespeare out it so precisely, "to love you is better than..." to love God is better than any hostility we may encounter.

May we be shaken and be filled with the Spirit so that we may have the boldness necessary to proclaim the message and bear witness in the lives w elive.