April 7, 2021

Bright Wednesday
Acts 2:22-36; John 1:35-51
No fasting or abstention from foods

Read John 1:35-51

Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!

Баба бабі сказала (Baba babee skazala) – a grandmother said to a grandmother. It is affectionately known as the ББС (the BBC – yes, like the British broadcaster) and is understood to be the quickest way for information to be disseminated (and it involves many, many more than just grandmothers). If you want news to get around, just tell a family member or a friend. Even in this technological and information age, it is quicker to inform a friend of some news through your smartphone than write a blog entry about it. We just love telling our family and friends about what is happening. We always have. We always will.

When Andrew follows the advice of John the Baptist to follow Jesus, and he discovers that what John declared, that Jesus may indeed be the long-awaited Messiah, what does he do? He goes straight to his brother, Peter, and makes this declaration. The invitation that Andrew received from Jesus, Andrew gave to Peter, “Come and see.”

This is perhaps the best model of actually doing what the Lord asked us to do in His Great Commission (See Matthew 20 – Go! Make Disciples. Baptize. Teach. Remember.), and what our Patriarch has declared as our strategic vision for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church around the world (see here). All we need do is share our stories that we have met and know the Lord (our personal encounter), what He has done for us, how He has healed us, and so forth, and then make that invitation to others so that they too may encounter Him. We don’t need creative advertising gimmicks. We just need to tell others.