Today’s Reading shows how St. Paul gives us another example of Standing Firmly for Jesus and His Church in Acts 14:19-28.
“In those days, some Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrived and won over the crowds. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But, when the disciples gathered around him, he got up and entered the city. On the following day he left with Barnabas for Derbe. After they had proclaimed the good news to that city and made a considerable number of disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.”
Why did they return to cities where they had been persecuted so viciously that Paul had been ‘stoned’?
Courageous persistence “strengthened the spirits of the disciples” whom they “exhorted to persevere in the faith, saying ‘It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God. They appointed (ordained) Presbyters for them in each Church and, with prayer and fasting, commended them to The Lord in whom they had put their faith.”
Did Paul have the authority from Peter to ordain those early Catholic priests with the power to provide Catholic Sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Annointing of the sick, Holy Orders, and Marriage?”
