Sixth Sunday of Easter: Founded on the Apostles

Last week, we heard Jesus' command, "As I have loved you, so you also should love one another."

That love brings together the Church into a body - it's made up of people of different nationalities, opinions, and cultures - but it's united in the love of God. 

Now, in this week's readings, we see how exactly that plays out in real life.

One of the big issues that the early Church had to deal with was what to do with gentile, or non-Jewish, converts.

Christianity had grown up in Judaism. All of the Apostles and first disciples were Jewish. In fact, Jesus himself was Jewish, and followed all the laws and customs of the people of Israel. For those first Jewish Christians, faith in Jesus wasn't this new and totally separate thing - it flowed out of the history and faith of Israel. Jesus is the fulfillment of everything that had come before him.

But as Christianity spread into the rest of the world, and people who weren't originally Jewish joined the Church, conflicts arose. There were some Christians who thought that the only way for a gentile to become a Christian was for them to first become a Jew, and that meant getting circumcised and following the laws and customs of the Jews. We call this group the Judaizers.

This created a problem for the gentile Christians. They weren't Jewish, that wasn't their culture or their history; the reading says that "dissension and debate" arose. So Paul and Barnabas go up to Jerusalem to confer with the apostles and elders of the Church. The reading we heard today is a summary of this event, but the whole chapter of Acts 15 describes what we now call the Council of Jerusalem.

There's a debate between the Judaizers and those who believe that the gentiles don't need to follow Jewish law, but finally Peter stands up and addresses the council. He says that the same God who chose them had also chosen the gentiles. He's given them the Holy Spirit and brought them into the faith. Why should we impose this extra burden on them when all of us will be saved through the grace of Jesus?

That's the end of the debate. Paul and Barnabas tell the group what they've experienced ministering to the gentiles, and then James, who was the leader of the Church in Jerusalem and part of the group that would want gentiles to follow Jewish law, confirms what Peter said. Though he was on the opposite side of the argument, he accepts Peter's decision and concedes the debate.

This is important. It would have been easy for James to say, "If you don't agree with me, then you aren't a real Christian" and leave with his group. That's how Christianity has become so fragmented over the centuries. Rather, he accepts the teaching of Peter.

The council sends Paul and Barnabas, along with some others from Jerusalem, to carry their decision back to the gentile Christians. That first great controversy of the Church was resolved through the leadership of Peter and the apostles.



In the Nicene creed, which we will proclaim together in just a few minutes, we say, "I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church." This story demonstrates the apostolic foundation of the Church.

Just as in the reading from the book of Revelation where the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem have on them the names of the 12 apostles, the Church today is founded on those men Jesus chose to lead his Church.

The apostles, with Peter at their head, went out into the world to teach, govern, and sanctify the Church - and they are still with us today in the bishops, the successors of the apostles. There is an unbroken chain of shepherds that goes back to Jesus. It is through that authority and that teaching that the Church remains one and at peace.

This isn't because of wisdom or holiness of those successors. Even the holiest people are imperfect and this applies to the apostles and bishops as well. When Napoleon captured Rome, he told the pope at the time that he would destroy the Church in one year. The pope replied, "Sir, we have been trying to destroy the Church for 1,800 years. I doubt that you will be able to destroy it one."

The Church goes on because she is guided by the Holy Spirit - just as Jesus promised: we would not be abandoned. The pope and the bishops follow in the footsteps of the apostles, guiding and teaching the Church with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

That doesn't mean that no one will ever make a mistake; what it means is that the Lord will stay with his Church and "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)

I've said to you before that no one can say that they don't know what the Catholic Church says about something. When there's a question, we can look to the teachings of the last two thousand years to see what the Church, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of the Scriptures, and the experience of Tradition, has taught. We know where we stand.

If we stay close to our the pope and the bishops, and hold fast to the teachings we've received, we can be sure that we are with Jesus.

[readings]