Sent In The Scattering

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Easter Feria

Today's Readings:
[ Acts 8:1b-8; Ps 66:1-6; Jn 6:35-40 ] 

Persecution scatters. That is how today’s reading from Acts begins... “that day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered”. By every worldly measure, this looks like loss: broken community, fear, displacement. Yet the very next lines reveal a quiet, surprising truth—those who were scattered “went from place to place, proclaiming the word”. What seemed like an ending becomes a beginning.

In similar fashion, St. Francis embraced a life without clinging, a willingness to be “sent,” even when the sending came through hardship rather than choice. The Gospel does not depend on stability or comfort; it travels lightly, carried in the hearts of those who trust. Like Philip in Samaria, the scattered become sowers, and “there was great joy in that city”. Joy, not despite suffering, but somehow through it.

Psalm 66 echoes this paradox: “Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth… Come and see what God has done”. The psalmist invites us to look again, to see that God’s works often unfold in ways we would not design. The sea becomes dry land; the place of fear becomes a path forward. The Franciscan heart learns to praise not only in clarity, but in confusion, trusting that God is at work even when we are being led somewhere unexpected.

In the Gospel, Jesus anchors this trust: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. When everything else is taken or shaken, Christ remains. He is not merely provision; He is presence. And His promise is steady: “I should lose nothing of all that he has given me”.

To follow Christ, then, is not to avoid scattering, but to carry Him into it. Wherever we are sent—willingly or unwillingly—there is the possibility of proclamation, of quiet witness, of joy taking root. Like Francis, we are invited to hold lightly to place and tightly to Christ, trusting that nothing given to Him is ever truly lost.

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