My favorite part of the Easter Season is hearing all the action packed stories from Acts of the Apostles. From jailbreaks to miracles, and from earthquakes to a Holy Spirit light show, this book has it all. In today’s reading, Paul gets stoned! No, really! He gets rocks and things thrown at him, and he is left for dead outside of the city of Lystra. But nothing can keep Paul down, as he springs to his feet and continues on his mission of opening “the door of faith to the Gentiles.” Paul knows well “it is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”
Living as people who believe in the Resurrection, and striving to live by the example of Jesus, do we have the same resilience Paul does when we come up against “hardships”? Can we still offer the peace that comes from Jesus to those who cause us hardship?
—Alfonso Pizano, S.J. is a Jesuit scholastic of the California province, studying philosophy at Fordham University in New York.