Every age likes to think that it is new and different from what has gone before.

There is a sort of modern conceit that tempts us to look back on those who have gone before us so that we can admire our own progress. As a result, every generation is tempted to think it sees and understands the world more clearly than men and women of the past.

What is remarkable is how often the same human weaknesses and strengths reappear time and again. The same problems, even if in an updated form, mark the life of the human race now as before.

Ironically, in this Easter season, our similarity to the past is a reason for hope and encouragement.

During these days and weeks following our celebration of Easter, the Church directs our attention to the early Church. In reading the accounts of those who were alive at the time of the Resurrection and who saw Jesus, we see an echo of modern concerns.

After receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we are told that the Apostles were emboldened to fulfill the final command of Jesus that echoes through the ages.

“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” (Mk 16:15).

As we saw in last week’s column, they did so by charity and by proclaiming the teaching of Jesus.

But when the Apostles manifested the power of Jesus by curing a cripple, they were recognized as a threat to change society. They suddenly got the attention of the leaders of the people.

They understood that this new way could upset the accepted understanding of good and evil. It could even threaten the arrangements of earthly power.

The disciples were arrested and threatened. As in our modern society, they were told by the authorities not to speak the name of Jesus in public. (Acts 4: 17).

This reminds us that the modern absence of public prayer or of God in the discussion of our contemporary problems goes back as far as the time of Jesus.

Additionally, we are told that the disciples did not give in to this restriction of their religious liberty. As a result, they were arrested again and tortured by flogging so that they would not speak the name of Jesus.

We recognize in these first disciples an echo of the suffering of the faithful throughout the world in our own day.

Just last week, Pope Francis spoke of the witness of suffering given to the Church by the faithful. He said, “The memory of these heroic witnesses, both ancient and recent, confirms us in the knowledge that the Church is the Church if it is the Church of martyrs.”

Lest we might think, however, that the disciples, in speaking heroically, were courageous or talented in a manner different from us, we have the testimony of the authorities of that time. We are told that they were amazed because they saw in Peter and John “uneducated, ordinary men.”

For this reason, Pope Francis reminded the world in his talk last week, that “… the fundamental aspect of a martyr is that he has been ‘graced’: it is the grace of God, not personal courage, that makes us martyrs.”

Why then can these recountings of the early Apostles and martyrs be for us a reason of hope and encouragement? Because the challenges to faith that we experience today have been seen before.

The pressures of the state and of society to make us conform, or even abandon, our faith have been lived through, time and again. And each time, by the grace of Christ, the Church has not only survived but thrived.

As well, the acknowledgment that those who witnessed were not special individuals, somehow separate from us, gives us courage. They were ordinary men and women. We have the real hope then that by our faithfulness we can and will join them.

The Resurrection of Jesus changed the world. But Christ left us the command and the task of bringing about that change by working with Him.

The challenges are the same in every age. But so is the answer. Faith in Jesus.