Apr 18: Salvation Open to All

Christoph Weigel: Peter's Vision
Biblia ectypa: Bildnussen auss Heiliger Schrifft Alt und Neuen Testaments, 1695

Saint Laserian, bishop

Reading I: Acts 11:1-18

“If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God (NRSV, Acts 11:17)?”

Father, you speak your one Word to everyone in every time and place but, because of the confusion that comes from the sin of the world and our own personal sinfulness, we come consciously to understand and to express that one Word only gradually.

In the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, the Word now made flesh, we understood clearly for the first time, what had been given to us from the beginning, that our destiny as your people is not the land, as had been supposed from Mt. Sinai, but eternal life with you, a life that you share with us even now in this world, and have shared with us from the beginning, through your Word who dwells within us.

Peter was the first in the Church to grasp how much of our religious practice comes from ourselves, Father, rather than from you. Peter was the first to understand as well, what Jesus had taught, that your people are a people of faith and not of blood descent. All who believe are daughters and sons of Abraham.

Father, may we always keep our minds open to understand more and more the one Word that you have always spoken to us and continue to speak at every moment.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.