This weekend’s second reading includes the words “we have confidence in God and receive from Him whatever we ask.” Jesus makes a similar statement in this weekend’s Gospel. How many of us have misunderstand Jesus’ unique sense of humor? He trusts us to be attentive to the Holy Spirit’s guiding us to realize that we don’t need to ask for anything. As is stated elsewhere in the Gospels, if God takes care of the flowers who are not capable of asking God for anything, God certainly knows what we need and what will benefit us. All we need and some of what we want is readily available. All we are to do is allow the Holy Spirit to help us to trust that God’s love sees to all of what will help us become the best possible version God created us to be.
Our first reading for this weekend begins with the words, “The community of believers was of one heart and mind.” Many would comment that this is exaggerating the positive state of the community. Another view is that is this is a very accurate description. Remembering that the community was relatively small by our standards, it is likely that the people, when they gathered, were intently and consciously focused on talking about Jesus. People engaged in this type of sharing would have been very vulnerable with each other. Sharing faith experiences involves risk and trust. The more people develop those virtues, the more likely they would be bonded ever more fully as people whose lives and values emanated from the type of sharing and celebrating that took place. Any group of people is capable of this type of bonding.