Three Tasks of the Church

All throughout the Easter season, we will read at Mass from the wonderful Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke’s description of the adventures, challenges, and achievements of the early Christian community. His purpose is to show what “Apostles,” people sent by the risen Jesus, were doing. This is why it is so important that we, their distant spiritual descendants, should pay close attention. Our passage for today is from the second chapter of Luke’s work. We hear this pithy account: “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.” I have written before of Joseph Ratzinger’s characterization of the three basic tasks of the Church, and they are on evidence here.