Joannie WatsonOne word that reoccurs again and again in the opening chapters of Acts – and therefore in our daily Mass readings during these first days of Easter – is the word witness. Notice how Jesus commissions his Apostles: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8, emphasis added).

The Apostles understand what this means. One of the first things they do is choose a successor for Judas. There’s no question in their minds what this choice entails. Peter says, “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us — one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection” (Acts 1:21-22 emphasis added). …

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