Thursday of the Second Week of Easter

As part of our morning prayer experience at last week's April Day of Prayer at Loyola, our marvelous retreat director Christine Eberle chose what she labeled (for her) the most moving song of Eastertide: "How Can I Keep From Singing?" Perhaps you are familiar with its haunting, Irish-esque melody and one of its most powerful verses:

No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth,
How can I keep from singing?                       
 
Of course, the Apostles in today's reading from Acts knew nothing of this song, but we can find the legacy of their witness in its sentiments. Continuing the high drama from yesterday's saga, where they have been miraculously released from the confines of prison with the angel's admonition to "tell the people everything about this life," the group had tenaciously returned to the temple area with their full-throated song of the Good News of Christ resurrected. What an example of courage to 'return to the scene of the crime.' What testimony to the risen Christ is demonstrated in their boldness. Now they are brought before the Sanhedrin authorities again, charged with both the preaching and the defiance. "What is it about 'stop teaching in that name' that you don't understand?," you can hear the authorities questioning with growing agitation.
 
But Peter and the other apostles will not be silenced, so great is the power of this new life that they have come to know. No 'storm' -- no flogging that is their immediate fate nor the disgrace nor physical peril nor torture nor the persecution that lies ahead -- nothing will shake their inmost certainty of the presence of the Christ of love and mercy, the Lord of heaven and earth, now newly unleashed into the world. Life-changing, life-altering, transformative -- all rather anemic adjectives to mark the fervor of their yes to the mission of teaching and proclamation. Nothing is the same. They are a new creation. 
 
In our own day we have sad stories of lives imbued with new purpose -- parents, for example, who have lost children to suicide, gun violence, drug addiction, or to a fatal disease, and yet somehow are able, in spite of their numbing grief, to reach down and reach out to find the courage and boldness to redefine their lives and legacy through witness and advocacy.Their battle-scarred example helps us dare to sing a new song of justice and healing and peace. From them, and from the testimony of the Apostles, we draw courage to sing our unstoppable song. Nurtured through Word and Sacrament, we too can do bold things. What is on our playlist today?