A reading from the first Letter of Saint Peter 3:15-18
Beloved: Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.
For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit.
REFLECTION: "Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame."
In the readings today, we see that many great deeds were performed and it did not matter if Peter, Phillip, John or Paul performed the miracles. They all unanimously and with great joy and excitement pointed to Jesus Christ as the reason for their success. People from Samaria were being healed, demons were driven out and the paralyzed and crippled walked.
There probably were also people they met who were doubtful, angry, argumentative, or anti Christ. If anyone insulted me, or doubted what I was saying or were too demanding, or could quote verse after verse in the BIble, I probaby would take the attacks personally, lose control of my temper and be resentful. Yet St Peter had advised them to "Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame."
How are we to react when challenged, especially in our Catholic beliefs? We should never try to be right in the eyes of others nor try to control what others think of us. We need to control how we respond to people, especially when their beliefs are different from ours.
We have all found ourselves in situations needing to defend our faith, our stance on pro life or the existence of God. Did we respond with gentleness and reverence?
God bless you
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