Homily: April 22, 2026, Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter (Persecution)

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Holy Family School Mass Homily: 

 “There broke out a severe persecution of the Church in Jerusalem, and all were scattered…”

Who founded the Catholic Church? Jesus!

Today’s first reading tells us that the Church He founded was fiercely persecuted at the beginning, that means the Church was attacked by enemies, so how did the Catholic Church survive till today?

The answer is also found in the reading, the Church was built on the preaching and witnessing of the Apostles, the very people who followed Jesus when He was alive, at His death and after He resurrected. They were His disciples who did not fear the persecutions and continued to preach and teach many people.

Is the Church founded by Jesus still here today? Yes! Not only here - it is growing all over the world.

Our Catholic Church today is founded by Jesus Himself over 2,000 years ago, handed to the Apostles and passed down to the popes and bishops, year after year, century after century.

But it has always been a challenging journey. From the very beginning, the Church faced persecution.

The enemies of the Church tried to stop the Apostles from preaching because many, many people believed and followed them. So the enemies tried to kill and scatter them hoping they would get frightened and would stop growing.

Do you think the Church became weaker after being persecuted?

Amazingly, the opposite happened. Wherever Christians were persecuted - in Jerusalem, in Rome, in Europe, and even today in places like the Middle East and Africa, the more persecutions there were, the stronger the Church grew!

It seems as if the blood of the Christians who died for the faith, were the seeds that grew and grew into more and more communities around the world!

What about in the United States, do we face persecution here for our faith?

Not really. We are very blessed. We can come to church freely. We can pray openly. We can talk about Jesus without fear.

So what should we do with this freedom?

We should be grateful. And we should be courageous in our own way. We do not need to die for our faith and we can live out our faith without fear, and we don’t have to be shy about it too!

We can pray every day,  be kind to others, stand up for what is right, and not be afraid to say, “I believe in Jesus!”

The early Christians were brave, and so the Church was built. Now it is our turn, we too can be brave, and the Church will continue to grow.

Let us use the freedom we have, to show the world that we are Christians and our Lord is Jesus!

Amen.


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