The Acts of the Apostles strikingly illuminates the boldness and courage of the early Church. Peter and John, Paul and Stephen, Phoebe and Lydia speak and act in the freedom of the risen Christ, knowing themselves as beloved children of the Father who had been purchased with the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ and anointed in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Time and again, their preaching, healing, and charity are met with resistance, persecution, and violence from the leaders in Jerusalem.
Certainly, those who had colluded in the sham trial and crucifixion of the Lord did not want His followers going about the city proclaiming that He was alive.
Nevertheless, this opposition to the Word does not hinder, frighten, or intimidate those first followers of Christ from their Gospel mission.
The Truth will set us free
Christ tells us that when we know the Truth, we will be set free. (John 8:32)
St. Paul reminds us that it is for freedom, that we were set free. (Galatians 5:1)
Liberation from sin and death allows us, indeed compels us, to live in the truth.
To affirm that God exists, Jesus is the unique and only Savior of the human race, the Catholic Church has received the fullness of divine revelation, divine love is the essence of our existence, our humanity — our identity, purpose, sexuality, social values, and morality — are not human constructs, eternal life with God and perpetual hell without God are real, to embrace these aspects of truth is to be liberated from falsehood and to be set on the course of sanity and sanctity.
Those first followers of Jesus had personally experienced the Resurrection and tasted the power of the Holy Spirit; they had become a new creation in Christ, and hence, were radically free.
No social disapproval, threat of violence, loss of reputation or wealth, or even a cruel death could deter them from preaching and living the Gospel.
They instinctively knew that to betray or abandon their mission would not only be a denial of the Lord but also a negation of their own integrity and identity.
Everyone around the early Christians wanted them to conform, to be quiet, to acquiesce in the lie that Jesus had not really risen from the dead. They could not do it.
They had tasted the freedom of the Holy Spirit and there was no going back.
Living this message today
As American Catholics in the 21st century, we can take great inspiration from those courageous saints in the Acts of the Apostles.
The manipulation of social media, the predominant cancel culture, the narratives spun in the news, the increase of “group think” all should give us pause to ponder the gift of freedom we enjoy as children of God.
Religious liberty, guaranteed in the First Amendment of the Constitution, is not a benevolence granted by the state; it is a gift from God Himself as a guarantor of the primacy of conscience and belief.
In a society that increasingly pressures us to conform by shaming and punishing those who do not, we need to be bold and fearless in living and defending our freedom.
Religious liberty includes the freedom of worship but also encompasses the right to follow our conscience, to live our faith in the public square, to make our contribution to the common good, and to preach the Gospel and the teachings of the Church.
As Catholics, we are called to live and speak the Truth in love, never demonizing anyone, loving our enemies, forgiving those who malign us, but never backing off from what we know to be true, good, and beautiful.
The influencers of the age saw the early Christians as trouble-makers, non-conformists, a pesky sect whose beliefs and practices were a threat to the established social order.
Christians refused to worship the emperor, eschewed violence, embraced monogamous marriage, rejected sexual promiscuity, valued the life of all unborn children and infants, cared for the poor and the sick, helped plague victims, and lived in this world as strangers and sojourners.
They were willing to undergo horrible and excruciating deaths rather than fit into a socially constructed lie.
Are we enough like them today?
Some Catholics today seek to make an accommodation of Catholicism with the current left agenda, constructing a parallel church of their own making. The current situation in German Catholicism comes to mind.
Others seek refuge in a remnant church, rejecting any ecclesial developments since the Second Vatican Council as illegitimate.
Social media is rife with such thoughts and projections from the agenda of the right.
The Catholic Church never simply conforms to culture nor unthinkingly rejects it.
We seek to transform and purify culture through the shining truth of the Gospel, retaining those aspects of society that are authentically human and contribute to the common good and resisting those ideas, actions, and laws which do not.
In a society that seems intent on uniformity of social thought and appears increasingly hostile to orthodox Christianity, we are called to gently but firmly resist the manipulation and stand in the bright freedom of Christ’s truth.
The martyrs who found themselves facing savage animals in Roman amphitheaters, the chopping block in the Tower of London, the guillotine in revolutionary Paris, the evils of Auschwitz, and the terror of the Soviet gulags all knew that believing and living the truth costs something.
We joyfully proclaim the Truth of the Resurrection of Christ!