Jesus Appears to the Apostles
04/08/10 06:05 Filed in: Faith
As students of the Bible, we, too, are expected to bear witnesses to the truth of our faith. And we don’t have to travel far afield to do so. Our neighborhood and workplace can be fertile mission territory. We can bear witness in our relationships with family, friends, co-workers and those who are in need of our support.
"Ye are witnesses of these things.” (Luke 24: 35-48)
On Saturday night, April 7, at the Sacred Easter Vigil, 21 converts entered our local faith community in a ceremony that was the culmination of a year of study, prayer and preparation on their part. The same welcoming ritual was enacted in churches throughout the world. In our country alone, the total number converts has been estimated at 150,000.
In many cases, the converts were brought to the faith by someone who took to heart the words Jesus spoke to His apostles in the Upper Room: “Ye are witnesses of these things.”
Thanks to the way that small band of witnesses responded to Jesus, today more than 2.1 billion people (one-third of the world’s population) are Christians. Eighty-five percent of the U.S. population is Christian with Catholics accounting for 24 percent of the total.
As students of the Bible, we, too, are expected to bear witnesses to the truth of our faith. And we don’t have to travel far afield to do so. Our neighborhood and workplace can be fertile mission territory. We can bear witness in our relationships with family, friends, co-workers and those who are in need of our support. If the truth of what we have to say is borne out by our actions, we will attract people to the faith just as the first disciples did.
On Saturday night, April 7, at the Sacred Easter Vigil, 21 converts entered our local faith community in a ceremony that was the culmination of a year of study, prayer and preparation on their part. The same welcoming ritual was enacted in churches throughout the world. In our country alone, the total number converts has been estimated at 150,000.
In many cases, the converts were brought to the faith by someone who took to heart the words Jesus spoke to His apostles in the Upper Room: “Ye are witnesses of these things.”
Thanks to the way that small band of witnesses responded to Jesus, today more than 2.1 billion people (one-third of the world’s population) are Christians. Eighty-five percent of the U.S. population is Christian with Catholics accounting for 24 percent of the total.
As students of the Bible, we, too, are expected to bear witnesses to the truth of our faith. And we don’t have to travel far afield to do so. Our neighborhood and workplace can be fertile mission territory. We can bear witness in our relationships with family, friends, co-workers and those who are in need of our support. If the truth of what we have to say is borne out by our actions, we will attract people to the faith just as the first disciples did.
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