“The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.” // Acts 3:15

Whenever I'm forming a team as a campus minister, one of my favorite exercises is having each member write and share their testimony. It's a tool to help get to know one another and see how their witness can be used in talks on retreats. In writing their testimony, they recall their life before knowing Christ, the moment or season in their life when they surrendered and followed Him, and what their life has been like since following Him. It is a powerful reminder of how God has been present and continues to guide them.

There is one thing to be said about giving a testimony or witness, as Saint Peter did in the Acts of the Apostles today. It takes self-reflection to recall past wounds and sins we have overcome, healed from, and hopefully been freed from in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is an entirely different thing to listen to someone's witness.

In the Upper Room in today's Gospel (see Luke 24:35-48), Christ witnesses to the Apostles about His Resurrection, putting their troubled minds and hearts at ease as He breaks open the prophets, Psalms, and the rest of Scripture. He reminds them what He taught them before His death and points out His wounds to them to touch and feel.  

Christ needs the Apostles to listen to His witness. He knows how vital their witness will be when sent out to proclaim what they saw, heard, and touched in Jesus' presence. He does what He has always done with them, showing them how to do what He has done: this time, giving witness.

We have all been called upon at one point to witness what we believe, why we believe it, and Who we have chosen to believe and follow. Sometimes, it is with strangers, often with those who know us best, and sometimes still when we admit to an addiction and call upon a higher power. No matter the audience, Christ invites us to witness our faith with the same passion as the Apostles. "[O]f this, we are witnesses" (Acts 3:15).