Supper at Emmaus, Matthias Stom, 1633-1639
Fr. Smith’s Commentary on the Second Reading
1st Letter of Peter 1:17–21
April 26, 2020
This week we continue our examination of the 1st Letter of St. Peter. We saw last week that either Peter or a close associate who felt comfortable using his name wrote from Rome to converts in what is now Turkey around 70 AD. He began this letter by offering hope and today he will be more specific on where this hope rests.
As gentiles, they would have been struck by the idea of creation that Christians took from Jews. That a loving God brought the world into being would have been foreign perhaps unbelievable to them. Indeed, even now when we look at the world, it seems difficult to believe that it was made by all-loving and all-powerful being. There is simply so much evil in it that the alternative views that “creation” came from accident, greed, or outright hatred may seem far more likely.
Yet they made this decision and creation has its consequences. Once we accept that we were made intentionally and out of love, there are other things we will need to accommodate into our lives.
Continue reading “3rd Sunday of Easter – Getting Our Hands Dirty in Love”