Peter said to the crippled beggar, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk,” and he did.
At the Last Supper, as documented in the Gospel of John 14:12, Jesus said to the Apostles, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these.” We see in the healing of the crippled beggar that, by the power of the Holy Spirit and his faith in Jesus, Peter was truly given the gift of performing great signs and wonders.
The beggar Peter and John encountered was much like those we might see on street corners, begging in just about any city or town. These people need many things, and they may be sick physically, mentally, or spiritually. Yet, while we know they are in great need, what they usually want is money, just like the beggar in today’s reading. He didn’t ask for healing; he was there begging for alms, but what he received from God through Peter was something greater than he ever expected. He didn’t expect it because it was something he had never had; he was born crippled. The Scripture says he was so happy that, “He leaped up, stood, and walked around, and went into the temple with Peter and John, walking and jumping and praising God.”
The thing we need to understand is that, like Peter and John, by virtue of our Baptism and Confirmation, we have been given amazing and powerful gifts from God as well, gifts that have permanently changed us and marked us as children of God and evangelizers of the Gospel. Because of this, it is our responsibility to share with others the faith in Jesus that springs forth from these gifts. If we don’t, we will be guilty of living our faith in a manner that St. James described as a faith that is dead. In James 2:15–16, he said, “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also, faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
Haven’t we all been guilty of this from time to time? We meet someone in need or in pain, and we say something like, “I’m so sorry, I’ll pray for you,” but then move on as quickly as possible so we don’t have to actually do anything. Of course, offering prayer is doing something, and it’s always a good thing, and that may be all the person wants or needs, but we should always be discerning if there is something more the Lord wants us to do for them.
Whether we realize it or not, whether we feel confident in doing it or not, God has given us everything we need to share the faith with everyone we meet, including those “least of God’s children” we see on the street corner. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t still help them with their immediate needs of food, shelter, clothing, etc., but it does mean that we must find a way to give them the gift greater than they would ever expect, a gift that we can’t give unless we have already received it ourselves: the gift of faith in Jesus that would move them to want to know Him, love Him, and serve Him, a gift that would draw them to the Church and eventually to an encounter with Jesus Himself in the Sacraments.
We see the greatest example of this in Jesus from our Gospel reading today. Two of Jesus’ disciples were basically running away from Jerusalem after Jesus had been crucified and were headed for Emmaus. Jesus drew near to them as they were discussing everything that had taken place during His Passion, death, and Resurrection, of which they didn’t seem so sure. In His glorified body, they didn’t recognize Him, but they knew something was special about Him and would later say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” The moment of recognition appropriately came while He was with them at table. He took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. In an instant, their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him as the Lord. Jesus gave them so much more than they expected from this encounter. They had thought they were talking to a mere traveler. They never dreamed it would be the Lord.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, in just a few minutes, a miracle is going to occur right here in the church. Jesus is going to perform a miracle for us. He is going to become fully present to us in the breaking of the bread here on this altar, just like He did for those two disciples. Through His servant, Father Timothy, who has received the Sacrament of Holy Orders to serve as a priest in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, Jesus is going to take the bread, say the blessing, break it, and give it to us, saying, “Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is My Body, which will be given up for you. Do this in memory of Me.”
Let us pray that each time we hear Jesus say those words, our hearts will be burning within us as well, and our eyes opened to recognize the reality of who He truly is and the gift He gives us, greater than we could ever imagine, when He gives us the gift of Himself in the Holy Eucharist.
