PENTECOST
SUNDAY (A)
(Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11; 1st.
Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23)
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My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we
are celebrating one of the three greatest solemnities enshrined in the liturgy
of the Church: Pentecost, in honour of the Most Holy Spirit and the part He
plays in the building up of Mother Church, and of our own individual lives as
members of Christ. There is much of
beauty to be said about the Holy Spirit, so let me make a beginning with the
words of St. Paul which you have just heard in the second reading:
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but
the same Spirit; there are different forms of service, but the same Lord; there
are different workings, but the same God Who produces all of them in everyone.
There are different callings for all sorts of
people, but each and every one of those called is offered the same Spirit that
He may both enable and guide them to suitably respond to their calling: as the
Apostle of England, Pope St. Gregory the Great explained, “we are called to
make the effort, and we go out to battle; but it is the Lord who does the
fighting: the result is up to Him.”
There are different forms of service, Paul went on to say, but the same
Lord: for whatever work we do by the same Spirit in Mother Church, is to be
done in the name of, and for love of, the one Lord Jesus. Finally, there are different workings, but
the same God and Father Whose loving Providence orders everything we do to
serve His ultimate purposes for the harmony and good of all; and St. Paul tells
us elsewhere just what God’s ultimate purposes are, when he writes:
You are the temple of the living God; as God said:
“I will live with them and move among them, and I will be their God and they
shall be My people. (2 Corinthians
6:16)
Each of us, then, is called to serve our Lord and
Saviour by making use of the gifts His Spirit offers us, and, in that way – by
the loving Providence of God the Father – to help build a Temple for God’s
Glory, and work out our eternal salvation as St. Paul explains further:
The foundation ….. is Jesus Christ. If
anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay,
or straw, the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It
will be revealed by fire, and the fire (itself) will test the quality of each
one’s work. If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that
person will receive a wage. But if someone’s work is burned up, that one will
suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)
In the first reading you heard how the Apostles
first received the Gift of the Spirit and began to work under His guidance:
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began
to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. Now there were devout Jews from every nation
under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,
but they were confused, because each one heard them speaking in his own
language.
Peter made use of his own particular gifts of the
Spirit to proclaim the name of the Lord Jesus, and we are told (Acts 2:41) that:
Those who accepted his message were baptized, and
about three thousand persons were added to (the disciples’ number) that day.
Or, as Jesus Himself more beautifully expressed it
on a later occasion, the Father gave Him three thousand souls that day.
If we likewise, as living members and integral
parts of the one Body of Christ, open our hearts to receive the Spirit, each of
us will be given a share in the Spirit’s gifts whereby we will be enabled to do
our own personal quota of work to prepare for and give expression to the
ultimate beauty and variety of God’s Temple of glory.
All the parts of the body, though many, are one
body. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body (of Christ) --
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or freepersons -- and we were all given to drink
of one Spirit. The Body is not a single part
but many. (1 Corinthians 12:12-15)
There is another reason, however, for our different
gifts: it is because we ourselves are all different; each one of us is a particular
creation of God with our own unique personality. Now, in the service of Jesus, the gift of the
Spirit is meant indeed to make us all one, but not, however, all alike;
and so the Spirit comes to make each one of us both a truly harmonious part and
living member of the one Body of Christ, and also to lead us to become our very
own self such as God originally foresaw, loved, and intended when He created
us. In God, individuality is meant to serve,
beautify, and perfect unity.
Let me give
you a picture from the Fathers of the Church.
Water, as you know, is often used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit in the
Scriptures, and supremely in the sacrament of baptism. Now water coming down from heaven as rain
falls for and upon all plants alike: water falls upon the ground and feeds the
vine and the apple tree, the crops and the vegetables, to name but a few. That same water in the soil, however,
produces eventually wine, thanks to the vine, and cider thanks to the apple
tree. Seeds in the field, thanks to the
one water from heaven bring forth now wheat, or barley; now parsnips or
potatoes, each according to its own nature.
So it is with us, dear People of God.
We should delight in and treasure God’s Gift offered to us today, for it
is only by His gracious dwelling with us and working in us that we can realise
and fulfil our true and secret selves, for the good of all our brethren and for
the supreme glory of God our Father.
St. John tells of an event which occurred in
Jerusalem at the great Feast of Booths:
On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus
stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as scripture says:
‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’” He said this in reference to the Spirit that
those who came to believe in Him were to receive. There was, of course, no
Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John
7:37-39)
Now Jesus prepares His Apostles and His Church for
all those countless peoples who, over the centuries, will come to Him,
thirsting for the gift of His Spirit. He
directs His Apostles to go out to all peoples in His name:
Peace be with you!
As the Father sent Me, I also send you.
And then, in order that His promise of living water
might find fulfilment:
He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the
Holy Spirit.”
The Apostles could not give the Spirit of themselves,
He had first of all to be bestowed on them by Jesus; only then could He
subsequently be conferred by them in the name of Jesus. But lest there be obstacles of sin in those asking
for God’s Gift and wanting to offer themselves for His purposes, Jesus tells
His Apostles:
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them; and whose
sins you retain are retained.
People of God, recognize and reverence the dignity of
Mother Church. To establish, to guide,
and to sustain His Church Jesus gives His own most Holy Spirit; only in Mother
Church can we find and receive the fullness of the Spirit, and only in Mother
Church can our souls be cleansed and freed from sin in order to worthily
receive and fruitfully co-operate with Him.
In matters such as this we must not blindly follow our
sinful times. Sins can be forgiven by
God alone, is not enough that your neighbour or your friend understands you; it
is not enough, in fact it is no excuse at all, that you are only doing what
many people are doing; it would not enough even if a secularist government were
to give you the legal right and their public encouragement to act contrary to
Catholic teaching, as, for example, with abortive and contraceptive measures,
for sin can only be removed and wiped out by God’s forgiveness. Therefore Jesus gives His Apostles and His
Church the power first of all to forgive sins and then to bestow the Holy
Spirit. None can receive the Spirit from
the Church who is unwilling to seek forgiveness through the sacraments of the
Church.
However, this emphasis on the need for sins to be
forgiven is but the reverse side of the most awesome and wonderful truth
offered us by the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives at Pentecost. Our heavenly, supernatural, destiny is to
live and share with Jesus in the heavenly beatitude of the most Holy Trinity:
to personally experience something of the divine love that flows between
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the eternal peace of Their mutual and total commitment.
Notice, that relationship between the sharing of
divine love and peace. Jesus, having
risen from the dead in His glorious humanity comes to His disciples and says,
first of all:
Peace
be with you!
The disciples rejoiced greatly on recognizing the living
Lord Who had suffered and died on the Cross; but Jesus, speaking a second time,
insisted, ‘Peace be with you’. He was about to bestow on them the most holy ‘Promise of My Father’ (Luke 24:49), His
own most sublime Spirit … and for that, Peace
was most necessary, much more necessary even than joy. Peace was essential to both welcome
aright and then learn to hear and respond to the Holy Spirit, the ‘Gift’ of God:
The Spirit of Truth -- Whom the world cannot
receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him -- you know Him, because He
abides with you and He will be in you. (John 14:17)
Only the Holy Spirit -- working in us and with us
here on earth -- can form us in the likeness of Jesus so that in Him we may ultimately
be led by Him into the sublime Presence of the Father of Glory. When, therefore, God demands that we must be
purified from our sins, He is not interested in morbid nit-picking, nor is He
tyrannically demanding total and legalistic observance of His own arbitrary
laws and observances; He is seeking to help us become -- in Jesus His beloved
Son -- His own adopted children, able to share with their Saviour in ‘the glory He had with the Father before the
world was’.
People of God, come forward with rejoicing on this
day to receive the Gift of the Spirit from Jesus Himself anew in Holy
Communion. The Spirit alone can make you
truly free, and enable you to experience the fullness of divine love and peace;
indeed, He alone can make you fully your own true self, a unique reflection of
the Father Who created you, in the Lord Who saved you, by the Spirit Who moves
you.
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