April 12, 2026 • 17 mins
Fr Lou uses Acts to trace our roots from the early Church into the Future
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SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
The Lord be with you.
A reading from the Holy Gospelaccording to John.
On the evening of that first dayof the week, when the doors were
(00:35):
locked, where the disciples werefor fear of the Jews, Jesus came
and stood in their midst.
He said to them, Peace be withyou.
When he said this he showed themhis hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when theysaw the Lord.
(00:56):
Jesus said to them, Peace bewith you again, as the Father
has sent me, I send you.
And when he had said this, hebreathed on them, and said,
Receive the Holy Spirit, whosesins you forgive are forgiven,
whose sins you retain areretained.
(01:19):
Thomas, called Didymus, one ofthe twelve, was not with them
when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said tohim, We have seen the Lord.
He said, Unless I see the markof the nails in his hands, and
put my finger into the nailmarks, and put my hand into his
(01:40):
side, I will not believe.
Now a week later his discipleswere with him again, and Thomas
was with them.
Jesus came, although the doorswere locked, and stood in their
midst and said, Peace be withyou.
Then he said to Thomas, put yourfinger here and see my hands,
(02:05):
bring your hand and put it intomy side.
Do not be unbelieving, butbelieve.
Jesus said to him, Have you cometo believe because you have seen
me?
Blessed are those who have notseen and have believed.
(02:28):
Now Jesus did many other signsin the presence of his disciples
that are not recorded in thisbook.
But these are written so thatyou may come to believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son ofGod, and that through this faith
you may have life in his name.
The Gospel of the Lord JesusChrist.
(02:59):
The Scriptures bring us forward,backward, and well into the
future today.
We look at the scriptures andthe origins, actions of the
apostles, teach us somethingabout the early church.
When Saint Luke recorded thisbook, The Acts of the Apostles,
(03:24):
he indicated that this was thesecond volume of his books.
First volume being the actionsof Jesus, the gospel, second
volume being the actions of theapostles, which we read from
tonight.
And he gives us an indicationthat sounds so perfect.
(03:46):
They all got together, they allbelieved, they all had common
bread, they shared everything,they prayed constantly, they
enjoyed God's favor, and Godkept adding to them.
Now that last piece, we readanything in the last few weeks
in the newspapers, we realizedthat God is still adding to us.
(04:12):
The number of Catholics thathave come into the church this
Easter season is phenomenal.
The secular media finds itinteresting and challenging.
New York Times does, the secularmedia, or whatever religious
media we use, the internet.
What's going on?
(04:33):
So many more people are cominginto the Catholic Church.
Well, you know, that waspredicted.
Jesus knew that was going tohappen.
He even added, as Luke put, manywere added to that number.
Well, you and I are part of thatnumber, and it should always be
our goal to bring others in, tohave our family, friends, those
(04:57):
who don't know God, come in tothe church.
Not only come into the church,but come into the sacraments of
the church.
So that's why we're here,because today we celebrate the
resurrection of Jesus.
The resurrection of Jesus iscelebrated, as you know, for 50
days until Pentecost.
(05:17):
So the resurrection of Jesus isthe most important event of our
existence.
Everybody, I'm sure, I wouldn'traise, ask you to raise any
hands, knows about Artemis, too.
The whole world's eyes were onTV or internet in the last few
(05:39):
weeks, few days, last 10 days.
And we were able to see Otomiststake off and go around to the
other side of the moon and thankGod, and we pray for the crew,
we pray for NASA, we pray forour country, and they landed
safely, which is good, but it'snot unusual because it gave us
(06:02):
an eye-opening to what we do asChristians.
We pray to God who is Almighty,who is the creator of all, and
what the cameras were able togive us were insights of the
moon, of the earth from themoon, of the stars of creation.
Magnificent pictures came fromNASA.
(06:25):
But those pictures are picturesof what our God put there.
Those were pictures that our Godshows as part of his creation.
So as we look to the Acts of theApostles and Luke's rendition of
the early church, getting along,celebrating, breaking bread,
(06:48):
people being added to theirnumber, that's happening as the
world opens their eyes, itseyes, to what is out there
beyond our imagination.
What God has planned, we don'teven know.
But through the ingenuity ofminds, great minds, we were able
(07:14):
to go beyond a distance we'venever gone before.
I say we, I mean those whorepresent the United States,
NASA, and Canada.
We go beyond what we canimagine.
And we don't have to imagine asmuch because we saw so many
graphics, so many pictures.
We saw the heroic rescue.
(07:36):
We saw people being lifted upout of these capsules.
But they were doing their job asmembers of NASA.
We as Christians look at that, Ihope, and realize they're
talking about my God.
They're talking about myCreator.
(07:58):
And Jesus led the Holy Spirit tofill the early church with more
people.
And as we compare NASA to thenews, we realize those more
people are coming in today.
More are entering our church.
So you got a picture of thepast, and I have to say that
(08:22):
Luke made it ideal.
Later theologians tell us thatit was never that easy.
People didn't come together, andeverybody'd love each other and
share with the poor and gatherand broke bread and praise God
every day, and great numberscame.
It was a prediction as well as arecollection, as well as a
(08:47):
challenge that was recorded inActs of the Apostles.
So it's for us.
I always remind myself that thescriptures are written for us.
This is our story.
And we know that the world isspiritually anxious in so many
(09:09):
ways.
We know that the world issuffering in so many ways.
Well, to counter that, we havethe scriptures today of the
Gospel of John, in which allthese wonderful apostles just
met Jesus.
He came back from the dead, andnow he's with us in this upper
(09:31):
room.
The door's locked, but he'sthere.
This is great.
But somebody's missing.
Thomas is missing.
Finally, Thomas shows up, Jesusis gone at that moment.
Oh, wait, we've seen Jesus,we've seen Jesus.
And his response is the responseof the world so often.
(09:55):
Everybody in the world?
No.
The element in the world that isstill seeped, steeped in anger
and greed and hate andnon-belief.
Thomas, we've seen Jesus.
Nah, I don't believe it.
Well, no, he came, he sat withus, you know, he talked to us.
(10:15):
Nah.
I mean, think of the boldness ofThomas.
He knew Jesus hung on the cross.
He probably saw him go up toCalvary.
He probably heard about thescourging under Pilate and by
the Praetorian guard.
Thomas, we just saw Jesus.
He was here today.
Nah, I don't believe it.
(10:37):
Think of the boldness of Thomas,his, how can I say,
stubbornness?
To say, unless I stick my fingerin his wounds and his side, I'm
not going to believe.
Go away with this story.
And then John records it thefollowing week.
(10:58):
And he says, following week,Thomas was with them.
And Jesus appeared.
Jesus appeared to you and me.
Jesus is appearing to you and meevery day.
We have doubts.
We have despairs.
(11:19):
We have anger in our lives.
Through all of that, Jesus isstill coming to us.
Jesus is still available to us.
And what we do with that giftfrom God, His Son, is really up
to us.
When Jesus finally spoke withThomas, stick your hand right
(11:42):
here, go ahead, touch me.
I'm real me.
It's flesh and blood.
The guy you knew for threeyears, the guy you denied, the
guy you ran away from as he hungon the cross, it's me.
I'm back.
In a way that no one could everimagine.
(12:03):
When we went around the moon, wesaw scenes that we could never
imagine.
Oh, the the textbooks and theastronomers show us pictures,
but we saw it where we couldnever imagine.
(12:24):
A tiny part of God's creation.
So he tells Thomas, it's reallyme.
And he wants Thomas's faith.
Only Thomas can give him hisfaith.
Just like you and me.
God gives us the gift.
(12:46):
It's up to us what we do withthe faith we have in him.
Are we going to fulfill Luke'sgoal of looking at the early
church, people who love oneanother, people who broke bread
together, people who forgave oneanother, people who took care of
the poor, and the list goes on.
That's what the early apostleswere doing in the Acts of the
(13:08):
Apostles.
And that's what Luke is tellingus.
We still have that gift.
That book of Luke was writtenprobably around 70, but it still
goes on.
We gather today to break bread.
We're gathered today to greeteach other.
(13:31):
We're gathered today to hear theword of God.
We're gathered today to witnessJesus in the Eucharist.
It still goes on.
And we who are people who carrythe book in our hearts received
the same Holy Spirit.
When Jesus breathed on theapostles, he repeated Exodus and
(13:57):
all the books of the OldTestament right back to Genesis.
And the story of Genesis, youwant to see an image of Genesis?
Look at the headlines in thenewspapers in the last few days
about Artemis.
And God created the stars, themoon, the sky.
And our faith goes back to that.
(14:19):
And we hear in Genesis theChrucha, the breath of God
descending on all that was.
And that's how creation isrecorded for us in the book of
Genesis.
God's breath, life-giving.
(14:42):
It's the Spirit.
When Jesus comes back to hisapostles and he breathes on
them, he passed on his spirit tothem.
And when you and I wereconfirmed and baptized, that
same spirit came to us.
(15:03):
We may not think we're apostles,but we are.
Jesus sent us into the world tomake his word known and his
actions in daily living.
Yeah, we have the apostles cametogether and they broke bread
(15:25):
and all that.
But it didn't stop.
It kept going on, which isremarkable.
And Jesus comes to his disciplesin the scriptures today and
reminds them you've come tobelieve because you've seen me.
(15:47):
Blessed are you.
He's talking about us who havenot seen and yet believed.
When the books close and we gohome, our story continues.
(16:10):
To bring the hope of Jesus toothers, to bring the hope of
Jesus where there's despair andhurt and greed and prejudice and
war.
Our goal is to be the earlyapostles who were sent into the
world, this beautiful creationthat we have yet to really 100%
(16:36):
appreciate.
But we have Jesus, and he's partof that eternal creation, and he
inspires us through the HolySpirit to carry on his work with
joy and sharing and love.
(16:58):
Happy Easter?
Yes.
Today?
Yes.
Fifty days from now?
Yes.
Every day of our lives.
Yes.
Happy Easter.
The Lord be with you.
A reading from the Holy Gospelaccording to John.
On the evening of that first dayof the week, when the doors were
(00:35):
locked, where the disciples werefor fear of the Jews, Jesus came
and stood in their midst.
He said to them, Peace be withyou.
When he said this he showed themhis hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when theysaw the Lord.
(00:56):
Jesus said to them, Peace bewith you again, as the Father
has sent me, I send you.
And when he had said this, hebreathed on them, and said,
Receive the Holy Spirit, whosesins you forgive are forgiven,
whose sins you retain areretained.
(01:19):
Thomas, called Didymus, one ofthe twelve, was not with them
when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said tohim, We have seen the Lord.
He said, Unless I see the markof the nails in his hands, and
put my finger into the nailmarks, and put my hand into his
(01:40):
side, I will not believe.
Now a week later his discipleswere with him again, and Thomas
was with them.
Jesus came, although the doorswere locked, and stood in their
midst and said, Peace be withyou.
Then he said to Thomas, put yourfinger here and see my hands,
(02:05):
bring your hand and put it intomy side.
Do not be unbelieving, butbelieve.
Jesus said to him, Have you cometo believe because you have seen
me?
Blessed are those who have notseen and have believed.
(02:28):
Now Jesus did many other signsin the presence of his disciples
that are not recorded in thisbook.
But these are written so thatyou may come to believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son ofGod, and that through this faith
you may have life in his name.
The Gospel of the Lord JesusChrist.
(02:59):
The Scriptures bring us forward,backward, and well into the
future today.
We look at the scriptures andthe origins, actions of the
apostles, teach us somethingabout the early church.
When Saint Luke recorded thisbook, The Acts of the Apostles,
(03:24):
he indicated that this was thesecond volume of his books.
First volume being the actionsof Jesus, the gospel, second
volume being the actions of theapostles, which we read from
tonight.
And he gives us an indicationthat sounds so perfect.
(03:46):
They all got together, they allbelieved, they all had common
bread, they shared everything,they prayed constantly, they
enjoyed God's favor, and Godkept adding to them.
Now that last piece, we readanything in the last few weeks
in the newspapers, we realizedthat God is still adding to us.
(04:12):
The number of Catholics thathave come into the church this
Easter season is phenomenal.
The secular media finds itinteresting and challenging.
New York Times does, the secularmedia, or whatever religious
media we use, the internet.
What's going on?
(04:33):
So many more people are cominginto the Catholic Church.
Well, you know, that waspredicted.
Jesus knew that was going tohappen.
He even added, as Luke put, manywere added to that number.
Well, you and I are part of thatnumber, and it should always be
our goal to bring others in, tohave our family, friends, those
(04:57):
who don't know God, come in tothe church.
Not only come into the church,but come into the sacraments of
the church.
So that's why we're here,because today we celebrate the
resurrection of Jesus.
The resurrection of Jesus iscelebrated, as you know, for 50
days until Pentecost.
(05:17):
So the resurrection of Jesus isthe most important event of our
existence.
Everybody, I'm sure, I wouldn'traise, ask you to raise any
hands, knows about Artemis, too.
The whole world's eyes were onTV or internet in the last few
(05:39):
weeks, few days, last 10 days.
And we were able to see Otomiststake off and go around to the
other side of the moon and thankGod, and we pray for the crew,
we pray for NASA, we pray forour country, and they landed
safely, which is good, but it'snot unusual because it gave us
(06:02):
an eye-opening to what we do asChristians.
We pray to God who is Almighty,who is the creator of all, and
what the cameras were able togive us were insights of the
moon, of the earth from themoon, of the stars of creation.
Magnificent pictures came fromNASA.
(06:25):
But those pictures are picturesof what our God put there.
Those were pictures that our Godshows as part of his creation.
So as we look to the Acts of theApostles and Luke's rendition of
the early church, getting along,celebrating, breaking bread,
(06:48):
people being added to theirnumber, that's happening as the
world opens their eyes, itseyes, to what is out there
beyond our imagination.
What God has planned, we don'teven know.
But through the ingenuity ofminds, great minds, we were able
(07:14):
to go beyond a distance we'venever gone before.
I say we, I mean those whorepresent the United States,
NASA, and Canada.
We go beyond what we canimagine.
And we don't have to imagine asmuch because we saw so many
graphics, so many pictures.
We saw the heroic rescue.
(07:36):
We saw people being lifted upout of these capsules.
But they were doing their job asmembers of NASA.
We as Christians look at that, Ihope, and realize they're
talking about my God.
They're talking about myCreator.
(07:58):
And Jesus led the Holy Spirit tofill the early church with more
people.
And as we compare NASA to thenews, we realize those more
people are coming in today.
More are entering our church.
So you got a picture of thepast, and I have to say that
(08:22):
Luke made it ideal.
Later theologians tell us thatit was never that easy.
People didn't come together, andeverybody'd love each other and
share with the poor and gatherand broke bread and praise God
every day, and great numberscame.
It was a prediction as well as arecollection, as well as a
(08:47):
challenge that was recorded inActs of the Apostles.
So it's for us.
I always remind myself that thescriptures are written for us.
This is our story.
And we know that the world isspiritually anxious in so many
(09:09):
ways.
We know that the world issuffering in so many ways.
Well, to counter that, we havethe scriptures today of the
Gospel of John, in which allthese wonderful apostles just
met Jesus.
He came back from the dead, andnow he's with us in this upper
(09:31):
room.
The door's locked, but he'sthere.
This is great.
But somebody's missing.
Thomas is missing.
Finally, Thomas shows up, Jesusis gone at that moment.
Oh, wait, we've seen Jesus,we've seen Jesus.
And his response is the responseof the world so often.
(09:55):
Everybody in the world?
No.
The element in the world that isstill seeped, steeped in anger
and greed and hate andnon-belief.
Thomas, we've seen Jesus.
Nah, I don't believe it.
Well, no, he came, he sat withus, you know, he talked to us.
(10:15):
Nah.
I mean, think of the boldness ofThomas.
He knew Jesus hung on the cross.
He probably saw him go up toCalvary.
He probably heard about thescourging under Pilate and by
the Praetorian guard.
Thomas, we just saw Jesus.
He was here today.
Nah, I don't believe it.
(10:37):
Think of the boldness of Thomas,his, how can I say,
stubbornness?
To say, unless I stick my fingerin his wounds and his side, I'm
not going to believe.
Go away with this story.
And then John records it thefollowing week.
(10:58):
And he says, following week,Thomas was with them.
And Jesus appeared.
Jesus appeared to you and me.
Jesus is appearing to you and meevery day.
We have doubts.
We have despairs.
(11:19):
We have anger in our lives.
Through all of that, Jesus isstill coming to us.
Jesus is still available to us.
And what we do with that giftfrom God, His Son, is really up
to us.
When Jesus finally spoke withThomas, stick your hand right
(11:42):
here, go ahead, touch me.
I'm real me.
It's flesh and blood.
The guy you knew for threeyears, the guy you denied, the
guy you ran away from as he hungon the cross, it's me.
I'm back.
In a way that no one could everimagine.
(12:03):
When we went around the moon, wesaw scenes that we could never
imagine.
Oh, the the textbooks and theastronomers show us pictures,
but we saw it where we couldnever imagine.
(12:24):
A tiny part of God's creation.
So he tells Thomas, it's reallyme.
And he wants Thomas's faith.
Only Thomas can give him hisfaith.
Just like you and me.
God gives us the gift.
(12:46):
It's up to us what we do withthe faith we have in him.
Are we going to fulfill Luke'sgoal of looking at the early
church, people who love oneanother, people who broke bread
together, people who forgave oneanother, people who took care of
the poor, and the list goes on.
That's what the early apostleswere doing in the Acts of the
(13:08):
Apostles.
And that's what Luke is tellingus.
We still have that gift.
That book of Luke was writtenprobably around 70, but it still
goes on.
We gather today to break bread.
We're gathered today to greeteach other.
(13:31):
We're gathered today to hear theword of God.
We're gathered today to witnessJesus in the Eucharist.
It still goes on.
And we who are people who carrythe book in our hearts received
the same Holy Spirit.
When Jesus breathed on theapostles, he repeated Exodus and
(13:57):
all the books of the OldTestament right back to Genesis.
And the story of Genesis, youwant to see an image of Genesis?
Look at the headlines in thenewspapers in the last few days
about Artemis.
And God created the stars, themoon, the sky.
And our faith goes back to that.
(14:19):
And we hear in Genesis theChrucha, the breath of God
descending on all that was.
And that's how creation isrecorded for us in the book of
Genesis.
God's breath, life-giving.
(14:42):
It's the Spirit.
When Jesus comes back to hisapostles and he breathes on
them, he passed on his spirit tothem.
And when you and I wereconfirmed and baptized, that
same spirit came to us.
(15:03):
We may not think we're apostles,but we are.
Jesus sent us into the world tomake his word known and his
actions in daily living.
Yeah, we have the apostles cametogether and they broke bread
(15:25):
and all that.
But it didn't stop.
It kept going on, which isremarkable.
And Jesus comes to his disciplesin the scriptures today and
reminds them you've come tobelieve because you've seen me.
(15:47):
Blessed are you.
He's talking about us who havenot seen and yet believed.
When the books close and we gohome, our story continues.
(16:10):
To bring the hope of Jesus toothers, to bring the hope of
Jesus where there's despair andhurt and greed and prejudice and
war.
Our goal is to be the earlyapostles who were sent into the
world, this beautiful creationthat we have yet to really 100%
(16:36):
appreciate.
But we have Jesus, and he's partof that eternal creation, and he
inspires us through the HolySpirit to carry on his work with
joy and sharing and love.
(16:58):
Happy Easter?
Yes.
Today?
Yes.
Fifty days from now?
Yes.
Every day of our lives.
Yes.
Happy Easter.
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