Today is May 19, Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter.
We read at today’s Mass, “We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.” (Acts 14:15)
The selection of Scripture read at Mass today speaks with piercing clarity: turn from idols to the living God. Saint Paul’s words are as urgent now as they were in the pagan cities of the ancient world. And Pope Leo XIV, in the first days of his pontificate, has taken up this very cry. In a world filled with seductive false securities — technology, money, success, power and pleasure — he has reminded us that we are called to make room for Christ, not crowd him out.
These “idols” aren’t statues of stone anymore. They live in our daily habits, our Instagram and Facebook feeds and in our fears. They promise happiness but deliver emptiness. And like those in Caesarea Philippi in Jesus’ time, we often treat Christ as just one figure among many — wise, inspiring, admirable — but not as the Lord.
Seeing the world rightly
But Jesus doesn’t ask for admiration. He asks for trust, for surrender, for discipleship. Pope Leo, reflecting on Peter’s confession of faith — “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” — calls the whole Church to reclaim this truth. It begins in the heart. It begins in prayer. It begins in that small act of turning away from what enslaves us, and turning instead toward the God who “made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them” — and who made you.
This is not a call to abandon the world, but to see it rightly: to behold creation not as something to grasp, but as a gift that points us to the Giver. The world needs more than Christian slogans or social commentary. It needs witnesses — joyful disciples — who proclaim with their lives that evil will not prevail, because God is alive, and his love is stronger than death.
In this Easter season, let us sing a new song to the Lord, as Pope Leo said, because he has done marvels — not just in history, but in you. Turn from the idols. Turn to him.
Let us pray,
May your right hand, O Lord, we pray, encompass your family with perpetual help, so that, defended from all wickedness by the Resurrection of your Only Begotten Son, we may make our way by means of your heavenly gifts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
