3rd Week of Easter – Thursday B

In the readings concerning Saint Stephen, the first New Testament follower of Christ to be martyred, we saw that he was one of seven, trust-worthy men, filled with the Holy Spirit, chosen to attend to some issues concerning the early Church in development. In today’s first reading we meet up with Philip the Evangelist, another one of those seven chosen deacons, in a very important and beautiful account which is said to be the birth of the Ethiopian Church.

We see him already in preceding passages to be a very successful preacher of the Gospel to the people of Samaria, however in this scene, the Angel of the Lord inspires him to head south from Jerusalem to Gaza, through the desert route. This is already a detail we can reflect on. Who was the Angel of the Lord, and why didn’t he give Philip more details? A lot of times God sends us to people or to some place through intuitions, direction, guidance, obediences… they could come directly from him, an Angel, another person, a superior, a parent, a dream—there’s just so many ways in which God can inspire us to act, to do something specific but it will generally be far from a complete picture. Take our calling to be friars, for example, in religious consecrated life. One hears that voice, that calling, but there’s never an entire picture painted for the individual. Things gradually unfold and it’s only in retrospect that one is able to connect the dots. Philip astounds us in the way he obeyed that voice without asking why, or who, or for what. Those things come afterwards. While on route, believing in the word of the Lord, he runs into the Eunuch. Bingo!

Here, the Eunuch is already open to receiving God’s word. One lesson we need to learn well is to know when to approach a person so as to give them the good news of Jesus, and normally God will inspire us for when the right time to do this is. There’s so much more to say about Philip’s evangelization efforts with this man but suffice it to say, God moves the eunuch’s heart and mind to such an extent through Philip’s collaboration, that he ends up asking to be baptized. We notice Philip did not say, “Don’t worry about baptism. It’s following Christ that you need alone.” No, baptism was necessary. The actual use of water while applying the Holy Spirit was not metaphorical at all, but an actual rite commanded by God. Separating baptism from the actual rite is ludicrous and we need to be on guard with anyone who proposes that.