Philip - The patron saint of the "Itinerant Mission"

The Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it." So Philip ran up to it, heard the Ethiopian reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah and asked him, "Do you truly understand what you are reading?" He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.  (ref. Acts 8:26-40)

Philip, the evangelist travelled one of the busiest roads of the ancient world, from Gaza to Egypt.  There the Holy Spirit ordered him to approach an Ethiopian traveler returning home after worshipping in Jerusalem.  The Ethiopian was one of the many people disenchanted with loose morals and the worship of many gods in the ancient world, who sought the meaning of life in austere ethics and in the one God of Judaism.

"Nothing new under the sun", we could say in reference to the way people live nowadays; our world holds many similarities with the ancient world.  Those who say they are atheists or agnostics, are in fact worshipping many false gods, such as power, money, the multi-faceted pleasure, physical beauty and fitness etc.

After worshipping and configuring, for a while their lives to these realities, they start to feel the loss of their freedom become alienated ending up tasting nausea and emptiness. This is the  time when they need someone to show them the way to the one true God; the God of Joy, the God to whom alone you should pay tribute in order to really become free from all earthly affectations.

Very much like Philip, the heralds of today, if they want to hear the voice of the Spirit, to tell them where to go, whom to meet and what to say, they must place themselves at the crossroads of the lives of men and women of our time.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC