Tuesday, April 28th, 2020

“You stubborn people, with your pagan hearts and pagan ears.” These are very hard words to hear. And yet Saint Stephen’s words to us today - he’s quite right, isn’t he. We know. We call ourselves Christians and yet how do we act and we react sometimes? As Stephen says: “You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Can you name a single prophet your ancestors never persecuted? In the past they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, and now you have become his betrayers, his murderers. You who had the Law brought to you by angels are the very ones who have not kept it.’” It’s all true isn’t it. We resist the Holy Spirit so often. We aren’t quick to listen to those God sends to us to correct and teach us - and sometimes we have a go at them. And we were brought the law by Angels: the Law himself, Christ, was announced to Mary by the Angel Gabriel, we ourselves have received the bread of angels - and yet we have not kept Christ, in our heart, at the centre of our actions!  

Let us today take 5 minutes to make a good examination of conscience, and beg God’s pardon for our sins, confident in his love for us.

Let us pray:

“O God, who open wide the gates of the heavenly Kingdom

to those reborn of water and the Holy Spirit,

pour out on your servants

an increase of the grace you have bestowed,

that, having been purged of all sins,

they may lack nothing

that in your kindness you have promised.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.”