The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines imagina-tion as the "mental faculty forming images of external objects not present to the senses." So, with some guid-ance, one can use one's imagination to go about form-ing the better world I would like to create but which I feel somewhat inadequate to bring about.

With the use of our imagination, today's feast can be of great support to us who want to do something worthwhile for the Lord. The Holy Spirit can fire our imagination and strengthen our wills.

The first reading looks to the past and shows us how God actually, historically came to the help of the people of Israel. With His assistance, they did great things for Him and themselves and us even though they were as the reading says, "the smallest of all nations."

The Gospel assures us that the very act of recogniz-ing and admitting our incapacity for the job can draw to us the strengthening power of God. It could well be that Peter's imagination was fired by the resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit. It may help us to stand in our imagination beside Peter in the awe-inspiring presence of the powerful and highly educated "leaders, elders and scribes" in the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem (Acts 4:1-22). There he confidently and very skilfully defended his proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus.