“As Peter reached the house Cornelius went out to meet him, knelt at his feet and prostrated himself. But Peter helped him up. ‘Stand up,’ he said ‘I am only a man after all!’ Then Peter addressed them: ‘The truth I have now come to realise’ he said ‘is that God does not have favourites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.’ While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit came down on all the listeners.” (Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44)
What was Peter saying while the Holy Spirit descended? Sunday’s first reading omits the passage immediately before this verse, so it seems as if Peter’s words were: “God does not have favourites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35).
But in fact Peter was not describing God’s fairness and our effort to please him when the Spirit descended. He was preaching the deeds of God for his people when the Holy Spirit came down (Acts 36-43), above all the death and resurrection of Jesus: “they put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and made him manifest” (10:39-40).
These words, describing Jesus’s self-offering for us, are effective instruments for his Spirit: do I make use of them, or trust in my own reasoning when I share my faith?
In the second reading John underlines that the initiative always belongs to God and was shown above all in the self-sacrifice of Christ on the cross: “this is the love I mean: not our love for God, but God’s love for us when he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away” (1 John 4:10).
And Jesus himself in the Gospel refers to his death and rising: “A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). These words were spoken at the Last Supper, when Jesus loved even Judas as a friend, and called him as such even at the moment of his arrest: “Friend, why are you here?” (Luke 26:50).
This is the kind of unconditional love we are called to receive from Jesus’s death and glorification, and which we are then called to give to others, even the “Judases” in our lives.
It is striking that Jesus gives us his Father’s love of him as the model for our love of others. He calls us to “love one another, as I have loved you” (15:12) and loves us “as his Father has loved” him (15:9).
His Father communicated to him a mission, gave him human freedom to respond, and let him endure the cross before glorifying him. Do I treat others in this way? Do I share responsibility with others and respect their freedom, even if it leads them to suffer?
Just as the Father revealed to Jesus his future resurrection, and Jesus has shared that message with us – “I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father (15:15)” – so we are called to love others by preaching that same Good News.
Out of love for each one of us Jesus has died and come back from death, as Peter preached. These saving words will dispose their hearers to receive the Holy Spirit, as Peter’s listeners did.
Photo: Screenshot of detail from ‘The Holy Trinity’ by El Greco at the Museo Nacional del Prado.
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