Prayer in Eastertime

Today the Armenian Church remembers the Metz Yeghérn (the Great Evil). It is the remembrance of the massacre during the First World War in which more than one million Armenians were killed. In Isarel is Yom HaShoah, memorial of the extermination of the Jewish people by the hand of Nazis during the Second World War.

Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Christ is risen from the dead
and will die no more.
He awaits us in Galilee!

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Acts 3,11-26

Everyone came running towards them in great excitement, to the Portico of Solomon, as it is called, where the man was still clinging to Peter and John. When Peter saw the people he addressed them, 'Men of Israel, why are you so surprised at this? Why are you staring at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or holiness? It is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, who has glorified his servant Jesus whom you handed over and then disowned in the presence of Pilate after he had given his verdict to release him. It was you who accused the Holy and Upright One, you who demanded that a murderer should be released to you while you killed the prince of life. God, however, raised him from the dead, and to that fact we are witnesses; and it is the name of Jesus which, through faith in him, has brought back the strength of this man whom you see here and who is well known to you. It is faith in him that has restored this man to health, as you can all see. 'Now I know, brothers, that neither you nor your leaders had any idea what you were really doing; but this was the way God carried out what he had foretold, when he said through all his prophets that his Christ would suffer. Now you must repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, and so that the Lord may send the time of comfort. Then he will send you the Christ he has predestined, that is Jesus, whom heaven must keep till the universal restoration comes which God proclaimed, speaking through his holy prophets. Moses, for example, said, "From among your brothers the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me; you will listen to whatever he tells you. Anyone who refuses to listen to that prophet shall be cut off from the people." In fact, all the prophets that have ever spoken, from Samuel onwards, have predicted these days. 'You are the heirs of the prophets, the heirs of the covenant God made with your ancestors when he told Abraham, "All the nations of the earth will be blessed in your descendants". It was for you in the first place that God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you as every one of you turns from his wicked ways.'

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Christ is risen from the dead
and will die no more.
He awaits us in Galilee!

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Peter has just healed the crippled man who was asking for alms in front of the temple. Healed of his illness, the man immediately began leaping for joy on the Temple Mount. He is like blossomed to life again. Obviously, everyone are amazed at what had happened. Many run around Peter and John and look at them with admiration and think that they have extraordinary powers. Realizing this, Peter tries to clarify immediately that the miracle is not their deed, but God's. Certainly they are not gifted with their own pow, but they received from God a good power to spend in favour of the poor and the sick. Jesus himself had urged them to pray with faith for the healing of the sick: "If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (Mt 18:19-20). From now on, without Jesus' visible presence, it is up to the disciples to work in his name. This passage of Acts exhorts us, even in our own time, to rediscover the power of the Church to change human history and to heal the sick. The disciples also have in their hands the prayer for the healing of the sick. The Gospel reminds us that "nothing is impossible for God" (Lk 1:37). The Lord is the golden thread that crosses all Acts of the Apostles and uses believers to work miracles in human history. In a world that has become difficult and complex our faith in the power of prayer should grow so that the Lord may intervene and make the lives of men and women more serene.