Saints Peter & Paul, 2025

 

(Acts of the Apostles 12:1-11; 2nd. Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18; Matthew 16:13-19) 

Peter and Paul have always been the pride of the Church at Rome, where both of them died for Christ after having openly proclaimed His Gospel there, in what was the then centre of the civilized world.  And we learnt, from the second reading, with what good reason the Church at Rome could glory in St. Paul, when he was able to declare near the end of his life:
 
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith… The Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. 
 
Paul was both deeply learned and extremely courageous: he could dispute with any adversary of Christ; and was quite prepared to endure most extreme bodily privations and dangers, as well as sustain all the physical assaults of his enemies:
 
I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, to abound and to suffer need. 
From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.  Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, of robbers, of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles;  in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren. (Philippians 4:12; 2 Corinthians 11:24-27)

Having heard the Gospel proclaimed and expounded to them by an Apostle able to give, and willing to suffer, so much in order to bring them the authentic Good News of Christ, the Christians at Rome were not only privileged to have received the offer of salvation, but also understandably proud of the messenger who after having so fully, faithfully, and fearlessly proclaimed it to them, finally sealed his witness by suffering martyrdom in their midst.
 
The glory and significance of Peter for Rome and the Church as a whole, however, is of another sort.  He would, like Paul, win the crown of martyrdom for Jesus and the Gospel at Rome. However, the real glory and significance of Peter lay in the fact that he had been uniquely and most sublimely chosen: first by the Father to proclaim Jesus as the Christ, and then by Jesus to receive the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and supreme authority in the Church of Christ on earth (Mt. 16: 16-19)
 
Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’  Jesus answered and said to him: ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father Who is in heaven.  And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.  And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
 
However, Jesus’ ultimate and possibly His most solemn deployment and confirmation of Peter as supreme shepherd for the Church occurred when Our Lord, after His Resurrection, appeared by the Sea of Tiberius to Peter and six other disciples as they were fishing.  Jesus gave them a wondrous catch of fish, foreshadowing their future mission and work in and for the Church He was committing to them; moreover, He had made preparations for breakfast after they had managed to land their catch.  And then, in front of them all:
 
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?’  He said        to Him, ‘Yes Lord, You know that I love you.’  He said to him, ‘Feed My lambs.’  (John 21: 15-17)
 
This was repeated for a second and for a third time, thus comprising what a modern scholar has described as, according to ancient oriental custom, a most solemn conferral of absolute authority. 
 
Why did the Father choose Peter first of all?  We do not know.  But Jesus recognized, accepted and confirmed His Father’s choice; and so, Peter -- though we know of no mystical experiences like those of Paul -- is nevertheless for us, essentially, the man of mystery and grace: specially chosen by the Father to recognize Jesus first of all as the Christ of God and love Him more than all as the Son of Man; and then by Jesus Himself to serve as the earthly rock of His Church and chief shepherd of His people.
 
Paul was outstanding for his wisdom and understanding (2 Corinthians 11:5):
 
I consider that I am not at all inferior to the most eminent apostles; 
 
while in his tireless endeavours and great sufferings for Christ he was incomparable:
 
I ought to have been commended by you; for in nothing was I behind the most eminent apostles, though I am nothing.  Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds. (2 Corinthians 12:11-12)
 
There can be no doubt that St. Paul was, and remains, the most profound and dynamic man of Christian understanding and apostolic endeavour the Church has ever known. 
But that is not the whole of Paul, for he tells us of his sublime mystical experience:
 
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know …, God knows.  Such a one was caught up to the third heaven.  And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.  Of such a one I will boast; yet of myself I will not boast except in my infirmities. (2 Corinthians 12:2)
 
Over-and-above, so to speak, the human personalities of Peter and Paul, we recognize the divine consortium manifested at the very origins of the Church of Rome: the Father who had first chosen Peter; the Son Who appointed and commissioned both Peter and Paul; and the Holy Spirit Who called Paul from the church at Antioch to go forth and preach the Gospel before the Emperor in Rome and to all nations.  Today, therefore, let us recall and put into practice the words of the Psalmist:
 
It is good to give thanks to the LORD, and to sing praises to the name of the Most-High. (Psalm 92:1-2).
 
On this great feast, however, let us not forget that we do not just celebrate the wondrous vocations of two great apostles, we celebrate Mother Church herself, and, above all, we give thanks for and rejoice in the Gift of God’s Spirit, Who first established, and now sustains and guides, her.  Let us look closely at our Catholic faith.
 
Jesus said quite clearly: When He, the Spirit of Truth, has come He will guide you into all truth.  He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.  All things that the Father has are Mine.  (John 16:13)
 
The Holy Spirit infallibly guides Mother Church into all truth, Jesus says …. Surely such truth is necessary and required above all for the Gospel proclamation of Our Blessed Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection! 
 
Mother Church believes Jesus’ word and promise that we have Gospel TRUTH; truth -- concerning Jesus’ prayer and suffering in the Garden -- that was probably learned by Mark from Peter who was close to Our Lord at the time and was most passionately and lovingly concerned about such truth; truth that was gathered by John from his own personal experience and by what he learned from Mary -- now his mother living in his own house with him -- after long, intimate, discussions together about what had happened to and with their beloved Lord, her Son.
 
In other words, I believe in a Spirit-guided Church; I believe the truth, expressed and above all in the traditional faith treasured in the hearts and minds of the Apostolic leaders, and in the  Scriptures written down under the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, Who, on the day of Pentecost, originally established our Catholic Church and still most assuredly guides her to, and confirms her in, all TRUTH, as Jesus Himself promised and as Mother Church herself 2000 years later still most humbly proclaims and so proudly and gratefully believes. 

13th Sunday Year C, 2025

 

(1 Kings 19:16, 19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9:51-62) 

It would be difficult to find a subject more suited to Christians living in our Western democratic societies today than that which is put before us by Mother Church in the readings we have just heard:

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. 

Authentic, political freedom is but the background, the setting, for the supremely important personal freedom of mind and heart that enables us to recognize and respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as He seeks to guide us ever further along the ways of Jesus.

You were called for freedom, brothers and sisters; do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.

How many young people, and how many foolish older people, think that they are asserting their freedom when they indulge their animal impulses of all sorts against the law, against propriety, and against the many civilities which have been found, by long experience of life in society, to be necessary if human beings are to be able to live peaceably and profitably together?  This cult of false freedom starts early in life and grows rapidly: little boys swearing, smoking etc., bigger boys getting drunk and being rowdy, girls trying to draw attention to themselves by either exaggerating their physical femininity or by showing a contempt for their own sex as they try to imitate men in their swearing, drinking, sexual licence and general vulgarity.  It goes on much further however, and then we get into the horrors of infidelity and adultery, drugs and prostitution, violence and murder, abortion and child abuse.  These are some of the stages in a gradual and growing madness: the abuse of freedom wherein the freedom that God meant to be the glorious badge of human kind becomes a scourge to torment and destroy true humanity.

Our Gospel reading offers us several examples of fettered human freedom, featuring a much indulged, human attitude which is, deceptively, destructive of authentic freedom, namely emotionalism:

As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to Him “I will follow You wherever You go."

Now notice that I am not here speaking against emotions, for they are an essential component of human character: for without emotions we could neither love nor commit ourselves.  Emotions only become emotionalism when they are allowed to run riot, when they try to take over rather than follow our mind, our intelligence.   Emotions are given us so that we might be able to love what the mind recognizes as beautiful and knows to be good; emotionalism, on the other hand, does not allow itself to be guided by the mind at all: blind and gushing, it is both ungovernable and unreliable.

The man mentioned in our Gospel reading, seeing Jesus as He was walking with His disciples along the road and perhaps having heard Jesus speak some words, called out,       ‘I will follow You wherever You go’.

Jesus immediately tried to help the man appreciate the meaning of his unthinking words:

Jesus answered him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest His head." 

Emotionalism is no guide to truth, and its great sin is that it tries to pass itself of as a form of inspiration: it is a human artefact pretending to be the work of the Spirit of Jesus within us, a shoddy imitation of what is truly a holy calling and calm conviction.

The Gospel then paints another picture for us:

To another (Jesus) said, "Follow Me."  But he replied, "Lord, let me go first and bury my father."

On that occasion Jesus Himself took the initiative, and when the man Jesus knew was already able – by the grace of the Spirit – to become a disciple of His and son of the heavenly Father, excused himself on the basis of a human father-and-son relationship, Jesus used words of almost brutal strength:

Jesus answered him, "Let the dead bury their dead.  But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

Dear friends in Christ, Love of God takes precedence over all else; and it can, and at times does, demand exclusive commitment, remember the boy Jesus found after 3 days in the Temple!!  Jesus’ call, here, was such a great privilege that if refused, it neither could nor ever would be offered again.

Finally today, we are told of another passing encounter; and notice here that it is not Jesus who takes the initiative:

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” 

Shallowness of character, superficiality, these again are recognizable human traits which are, more or less, true for every human being, since we are all weak and inclined to leisure and ease.  And yet, despite this, we are also endowed with a God-given ability to recognize and respond to what is of God.  Here, this man himself takes the initiative, offers what was not requested, "I will follow you, Lord", but he also wants to enjoy, he would say for the last time, all the old associations:

           but first let me say farewell to my family at home.

This two-minded attitude -- this wanting to be with Jesus and yet wanting to keep alive  the old attachments of life -- could lead nowhere:

(To him) Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plough and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”

People of God, let me recall Paul’s words again to mind for your personal consideration:

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. 

How free are you?   Can you, will you, "stand firm" in the freedom Christ has won for us, despite all the allurements and threats of a dominant and hostile secular society, in spite of all the fears and excuses of personal self-love?   Ultimately, such endurance and patience are only to be attained by following, as best one can by the grace of God, that other piece of advice given us by St. Paul:  Walk by the Spirit. 

Corpus Christi Year C, 2025

 

(Genesis 14:18-20; 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26; Luke 9:11-17) 

In our first reading from the book of Genesis we heard of Melchizedek, a priest-king of Jerusalem, who, later on in Israel's history, would be described (Ps.110) as the eternal priest of Yahweh.  This great figure, King of Righteousness (so his name declares), priest of Yahweh God Most High, meets Abram and his men returning victorious from battle with Chedorlaomer, the former overlord of the land.  Abram and his 300  warriors are exhausted after the battle, and Melchizedek comes with bread and wine to refresh them.

Let us just stop here and wonder at the wisdom of our God!  This picture of Melchizedek -- based on ancient traditions going back hundreds of years if not a thousand and more, and then taken up again in Psalm 110 about 400 years before Jesus -- presents us with a King of Righteousness, a priest of God Most High, who comes with bread and wine to meet the battle-weary Abraham and his men.  Since Abraham is our father in faith, as St. Paul tells us, and as we say in the canon of the Mass, who cannot see that here Melchizedek foreshadows Jesus?  Jesus it is Who comes to meet us, children of Abraham, wearied and wounded in our battle not only with flesh and blood but, much more importantly, with the baleful power of sin in the world. Jesus it is Who comes offering bread and wine now become His own Body and Blood, the only food fit for the spiritual refreshment and eternal nourishment of all who are fighting in order to answer God's call, as was Abraham our father in faith so long ago.

People of God, here we can glimpse something of God’s astounding wisdom and beauty, enough surely to encourage us to whole-heartedly trust Him and joyfully praise His most holy Name!

Melchizedek blessed Abram, with these words: "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth.  And blessed be God Most High, Who delivered your enemies into your hand".

When the time of fulfilment came, none could have imagined that the ultimate Priest-of- God-most-High would be God’s very own Son, made man; whereas Melchizedek had been a merely functional link between God and man, Jesus, on the other hand, is a sublimely Personal link uniting God and man in Himself; and the reciprocal love between Jesus and His Father will always, and in everything, be the originating source of, and definitive model and fulfilment for, every other blessing. 

God’s blessing mediated through Melchizedek was a singular blessing for the overthrow of one man’s earthly foes:

Blessed be God Most High Who delivered your foes into your hand. 

It would, however, become a universal paeon of praise when mediated through Jesus for the overcoming of Satan’s baleful power of sin and death over all mankind:

            Glory to God in the Highest and peace to His people on earth.

Let us now look more lovingly at the intimate details of Jesus’ giving glory to His heavenly Father and bringing peace to His faithful people on earth.

‘Peace to His people on earth’, this Jesus alone can give, in the sense that He alone destroyed Satan’s power of sin and death by His own dying sinless on the Cross and rising bodily from the tomb.  When the priest elevates the Sacred Blood, that is what he offers first of all to the Father in propitiation for our sins:  Jesus’ self-sacrifice of love and adoration, Jesus’ self-sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, Jesus’ self-sacrifice of faithfulness, trust, and obedience.   And there we come into it, so to speak, for, Jesus wills to bestow peace on earth, though He Personally is in heaven at the right hand of His Father, and therefore He wills to use us -- His disciples and members of His Body – as His very Own members on earth, to bring the fulness of His gift of peace to all of good will. 

And that, dear People of God, we do, above all, by living out the one prayer He gave us, through our humility: ‘forgive us our sins’, and our fraternal charity: ‘as we forgive others’, the only conditional petition in Jesus’ prayer!!

Think of the dreadful mess in our world today, and see how much evil is done for revenge, retaliation, satisfaction … Jesus does not pray directly for the forgiveness of such people; He acknowledges His Father’s truth and righteousness and mercy, He proclaims His absolute HOLINESS, and the INEFFABLE BEAUTY of His glory and goodness:

            Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Therefore, as disciples of Jesus, our first duty on receiving Communion is to give praise to God the Father Who, through the death and resurrection of His beloved and only-begotten Son, has freed us from the power of sin and death and bestowed upon us His Gift of the Holy Spirit.

In His feeding of the Five Thousand Jesus insisted that the Apostles share with Himself in the provision of food for so many:

            ‘Give them some food yourselves’, He said.

He still provides food for His People, but His demand for our contribution still remains in force, and the contribution each of us has to bring to the Eucharistic Table is our faith in Jesus, a faith not to be simply presumed but one to be repeatedly called to mind, renewed, and deepened in humility and love.

Bearing this teaching in mind, we are now able to see the full pattern of our response to Jesus and our rejoicing in the Eucharist today:

First of all, therefore, dear People of God, be always prepared and ready to give thanks, glory, praise and honour, to our heavenly Father.  Then, renew your faith in His goodness, power and promise to us in Jesus.  Finally, welcome the Spirit Whom Jesus bestows; for Jesus' own Eucharistic Presence with us passes quickly.  He comes, however, to bestow the Spirit Who wills to abide with us in all the circumstances of life: welcome Both, therefore, open your heart to both Jesus and His Gift, and pray that the Spirit may abide in you and rule in your life so that you may be formed in the likeness of Jesus for the glory of the Father in heaven.

Finally, never forget Mother Church.  We who aspire to become true children of God, must never fail to thank God for Mother Church, and to ask His continued blessing on her whenever we receive God’s food from her table at her Eucharistic sacrifice.

Trinity Sunday Year C, 2025

 

((Proverbs 8:22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15) 

Our first reading makes clear one most beautiful aspect of our relationship with God: the fact that the wisdom of God – in the Scriptures and Jesus’ ‘Good News’ Gospel -- is not alien to us; in fact, it is delightful for us to learn of and learn from it, and thereby to appreciate and understand ever more of God’s great beauty and goodness manifested in all His works and to be experienced in all His dealings with us: 

Thus says the wisdom of God: When the Lord established the heavens I was there … beside Him as His craftsman.  I was His delight day by day, playing on the surface of His earth, and I found delight in the human race.’ 

There, Wisdom brings about the closest union between God and man, in that God delights in His Wisdom, and His Wisdom delights in us;  and now if we turn to St. John’s Gospel in the New Testament we learn that:

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  

Oh, the wonder of God!  The Book of Proverbs, written at least 600 years before Jesus is found to be in such profound harmony with the Gospel of St. John whose words open up for us the marvellous beauty of the wisdom hidden in those Proverbs written to prepare God’s People for the coming of Jesus, so far in advance, so long ago! 

But that is not all, far from it!  Jesus in today’s Gospel reading assures us:

The Spirit of Truth will guide you into all truth.  He will take from what is Mine and declare it to you.  Everything the Father has is Mine 

It is, as I have just said, delightful for us to learn of and learn from the wisdom of God;  but it is indeed a truly sublime privilege for us to be able to even share in – according to our natural capacity and personal measure – the very life and love that flows between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for:

The Spirit of Truth will guide you into all truth 

He will guide us into all the truth that is Jesus’ about His Father and all the truth that is the Father’s about His Son; the Spirit will guide us into all truth, truth that enlightens and truth that inflames, truth that guides and truth that comforts; and in all the stages of our growth and spiritual development the Father will be our Goal, Jesus our Inspiration and Companion, the Spirit our Strength, our Hope, and our Guide .

However, without our hearing and recognizing the Spirit’s call we too easily imitate our forebears and seek for happiness where it cannot be found and should not be sought: in worldly pleasures, in selfishness and pride, greed and lust, of all sorts.

Creation was indeed a joyful work of wisdom and love, and there are bonds of deep compatibility and joyous sympathy between ourselves and the rest of creation because God created the whole universe with mankind as its crown through His Wisdom and His nurturing and hovering Spirit of love:  Son and Spirit, the Father’s two creating hands!   Such bonds with creation, dear People of God, are directly willed by God for our well-being and creation’s greater good, for mankind is the channel of God’s presence to creation and also creation’s voice for the praise and glory of its creator:

Mankind is part of, and open to, the whole of creation as its custodian before God. He is, however, unique in the whole of creation, in that he is made for, and called to, God; to share in God’s own life and blessedness as His true children through faith in Jesus by the power and working of His Spirit:

God created man in His own image; male and female He created them.

Selfishness and pride, greed and lust -- in all and whatever forms -- are directly contrary to man’s well-being.  That is what Our Lord made clear to us when, asked what was the first commandment of all, He answered saying (Matthew 12:29-31): 

‘The Lord our God is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’

There we can appreciate that love of neighbour is associated with and conducive to love of God, whereas selfishness – be it self-love or self-solicitude – is alien to both. Ultimately love of neighbour becomes one with love of God when Jesus Himself is seen as our neighbour ‘par excellence’.

Dear brothers and sisters, we should indeed rejoice and delight in today’s solemn worship of the most Holy Trinity, because of the glory and beatitude of  Divine Life and Love being gradually revealed and most marvellously offered to us, as disciples and members of Jesus in Mother Church.

We thank the Father for calling us to Jesus first of all; we love and admire Him for the wondrous beauty of His truth: for Jesus spoke what He heard with and received from His Father; while the Spirit speaks not of Himself but calls to our minds all that Jesus taught us.  And we should never forget to thank God for His wondrous mercy and grace to us in and through Mother Church and in the secret gifts and sometimes quite personal blessings that keep, inspire, and rejoice each us on our way with Jesus.

We look to Jesus with boundless gratitude for revealing the Father to us; for bestowing the Father’s Promise -- His own most Holy Spirit -- upon Mother Church; and for endowing her with His own most precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist; for His total love for us in His sacrifice of absolute commitment to His Father’s will; and for the Church He founded -- His Body and our Mother -- which treasures and infallibly hands down to all succeeding generations the inspiration of His words of wisdom and love, and lovingly pours out His healing and sustaining grace through her Sacraments of His abiding Presence with us.

We look and listen for the Holy Spirit Whom others can neither see nor hear, but Who is constantly opening our eyes and ears to appreciate and embrace the living memory of Jesus Our Lord.  We humbly await and even tremulously expect Him Whose presence we can never experience with present awareness but Whose condescension and favour we can most gratefully and joyously recall in the secret depths of our hearts, new-born with the life of Jesus for love His and our heavenly Father.

 

Pentecost Sunday Year C, 2025

 

(Acts 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23) 

Saint Paul writing to his very mixed congregation – from slaves to ‘nouveau riches’– at the vibrant Greek port of Corinth had to proclaim Jesus’ Good News in the face of social practices and current ideas both full and feisty, which demanded that he should always speak clearly and, when necessary, decisively.  And so, rejecting the idea that anyone could be rightly inspired to curse Jesus – part of the dregs left over from their recent pagan worship of idols -- he then declared:

Brothers and sisters:  No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

Now, those words are wonderful to me, for Jesus had said earlier (John 6:44):

          No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draw him;

and, those two complementary sayings embrace the most sublime and beautiful truth of our sanctification:  no one can come to Jesus and learn from Him unless the Father first of all draws him and the Spirit then enables him to say “Jesus is Lord”; that is, only thanks to the goodness of the Father can we encounter Jesus, and, only in power of the Spirit can we subsequently confess or proclaim Him.

Now, all that is mirrored in Jesus’ very first words to the disciples after having risen from the dead, and while they were still held chained by fear of the Jews:

Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent Me, so I send you … Receive the Holy Spirit.

 

John the Baptist, preparing the way for Jesus, proclaimed in the desert of Judea 

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”  (Matthew 3:1)

Likewise Jesus, the Incarnate Lord -- one with the Father and the Spirit -- on beginning His public ministry, took up that very same call to repentance: 

(Jesus) heard that John had been arrested, from that time on (He) began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  (Mt. 4:12, 17) 

How then could He -- the Risen Lord – after having proved the physical reality of His appearance -- Personally identify Himself more convincingly to these His fearful apostles than by speaking of the Father Who had sent Him, and of the Spirit to-be-bestowed on them:

Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent Me, so I send you … Receive the Holy Spirit.  Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained. 

Thus the Risen Jesus showed Himself – by wounds and words -- to be indeed the Lord and Master they had erstwhile so proudly known and humbly followed.  Truly, there was no room for doubt with such testimony! 

    

I will ask the Father, and He will give you the Spirit of truth, which 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 14:15-17) 

In that way the gift of the Spirit was made in the first place for both their personal comforting as individuals committed to Jesus, and for their confidence and courage as a small group of Jews thanking God for His gift of the long-promised Messiah, before becoming distinct from their Jewish compatriots, as founding members of the Christian Church.  There was, above all however, a bestowal of the Spirit for their Apostolic continuation of Jesus’ ministry by their divinely-witnessed proclamation of the Truth and Holiness of His Gospel to and for the whole of mankind:

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in My name—He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you. (14:25-26)

They had to wait and pray in Jerusalem for a short while before that further gift of the Spirit; praying with Mary the mother of Jesus and lovingly recalling all that He had said and done in their presence, while looking forward in anticipation to where and how the Spirit would lead them in their service of Jesus.  And then, most unexpectedly,

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.  Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.   And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.  (Acts 2:1-4)

 

Whom, what, did they proclaim?  The mighty acts of God manifested in Jesus’ proclamation of His Good News!  You knew that of course; but notice how they proclaimed Jesus: IN THE SPIRIT!!

Mother Church has never proclaimed Jesus as a mere record from history, her past memory of Him is also her abiding experience of Him as the living Lord and loving Saviour still alive in the minds and hearts of His disciples through His Eucharistic Sacrifice and Presence, thereby enabling them to recognize and co-operate with the formation of His Body on earth -- His Church -- by the Father’s Gift of His own Most Holy Spirit.  What exaltation must have thrilled the hearts and minds of the Apostles when the Spirit came upon them before the gathered Church for the very first time!

 

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.  They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? What does this mean?”   (Acts 2:5-12)

 

Today, heart-felt thanks should fill our hearts and minds as we try to appreciate that the Gift of the Holy Spirit is ours in a truly special way on this a most holy day in Mother Church, for the Spirit is given that each and all of us might come to personally know and intimately love Jesus and thus give authentic witness to Him as living Catholics. 

In our fulfilment of that most glorious privilege, calling, and duty, however, we must ever be on our guard lest we confuse our desire to share or witness to the Gift given us of God’s most Holy Spirit of Wisdom, Truth and Love, with any insidious temptation to self-exaltation; by avoiding personal emotions and imaginations that would witness not so much to deep Gospel peace as to a surrender to the modern clamour for and delight in surface (and too often sexual) excitement and exultation.

There is -- as the Apostles were to find -- comfort in the Spirit, for He it is Who alone can conform us to the likeness of Jesus; and what deeper comfort and joy can there be,  than that of becoming more and more one with Jesus the Perfect God and Perfect Man?  There is also power, purpose and commitment for us in the Spirit; for we are beings with potentialities able to respond to and conspire with such power.  Our hopes and aspirations likewise find supremely fulfilling purpose and commitment as the Spirit opens up before us all that God has prepared for those who love and serve Him in Jesus, on earth as well as in heaven still to come:

 

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.  To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. 

 

There is so much on offer for all who want to walk with Jesus and become true adopted disciples of His and children of our heavenly Father! This day of Pentecost is indeed like the freshly appearing beauty and joy of springtime-renewal of the world around us, after winter’s icy grasp is loosened by an invisible breathing offering life and promising hope.

Dear People of God, the Holy Spirit, today’s great and glorious Gift, is the Spirit of Wisdom, Love, and Truth; so in us, individually; so with us as a group; and so totally for us, individually and all together!!  Oh, He is beautiful and holy beyond any words I can conceive.  Happy and holy Feast!!