Bright Friday; Our Venerable Father Simeon of Persia (341); the Venerable Acacius, Bishop of Melitene (431-50)
Read
Acts 3:1-8; John 2:12-22
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
Peter meets this man at the entrance to the temple on the way to prayer. At this point, we see Peter changed, no longer ready to deny the name of Jesus but to carry out Jesus’ work in Jesus’ name. In the gospels, how often Jesus satisfied the spiritual needs of many when they were simply asking for a material healing. As often as he would heal the lame and the sick, so too would he say “your sins are forgiven.” Peter’s situation is much the same. Here is a man at the entrance to the temple, expecting no more than the charity from the pocket of Peter, but receives all the more satisfactory gift, as St. Ambrose writes: “So he gave not money, but he gave health. How much better it is to have health without money, than money without health! The lame man rose; he had not hoped for that: he received no money; though he had hoped for that. But riches are hardly to be found among the saints of the Lord, so as to become objects of contempt to them.”