Office Staff
May 19, 2021
PENTECOST
This coming Sunday is the Feast of the Pentecost. It is a very important feast of the Church and holds
one of the central truths related to our faith. One observation about the Pentecost though is that so
many appreciate the feast as an event when the Holy Spirit came to the apostles as in tongues of fire
and inspired them to go out and preach in foreign languages. There must be more to it than just this
amazing and awesome event? Let us take some time to revisit the event and see how it can speak to
us.
So, let us take a comfortable position. Remember that we are in the Holy presence of the Lord. Take a
deep breath. We inhale and exhale. As we inhale, we take in the cool clean fresh air that gives us life.
And as we exhale, we expel all that gives us stress, anxieties, worries and anything that weighs us down.
We inhale the spirit of peace and love. We Let the Holy Spirit enter into us and fill us.
Let us now listen to St. John as he tells us the story of the first Pentecost.
John 20:19-23
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for
fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the
Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins
you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Excerpts from A reflection on Pentecost (Frank Wessling previous editor of The Catholic Messenger.)
Apparently, we Christians can celebrate the feast of Pentecost without realizing that it means assuming
responsibility. At least I tended to miss that point until recently. I had associated this feast with a past
event involving Jesus ascending and the Holy Spirit descending: two divine actors passing in opposite
directions, with the Spirit more like a fog than any firm thing.
What we were supposed to be celebrating for the practical here and now wasn’t clear. But, why has the
church preserved a memory of this thing, this event, and this apparent transition of some sort?
Our Scriptures picture Jesus leaving this life in order to let the Holy Spirit enter. He made this clear: I
must depart so that you may receive the Spirit. Thus, you — meaning us — will be able to do what I have
done — and even “greater things” — so that holy unity may be recovered.
In other words, the life of God will be in us as it was in Jesus, and with even a mysterious “greater.” But
we have to accept such life. It won’t be forced. We have to read Jesus rightly and fully in order to be
divinized, to be God-infused. We have to get over our own reluctance, fear, ignorance and alternate
desiring in order for the Spirit of God to be realized in us as it is in Jesus.
At Pentecost the action of salvation shifted from Jesus, the Christ, to his followers, the church of Christ,
and the community of his way, his truth and his life. The responsibility carried by Jesus to be about his
Father’s business is ours in the same way: ours, individually, and together in communion with one
another. We had better be busy about absorbing everything that this means.
What was the “greater” that Jesus said we’d do? We don’t know until we try; until we trust the Spirit
and make a move. Then the mystery of the kingdom of God reveals itself just a little bit more, and still
more, through us.
We do know that the “greater” work at least means the worldwide dissolving of barriers, the end of
fears and divisions based on distance, time, culture, language, tribe, color and sex. Jesus confined his
redeeming work to the tiny geography of the Gospel narrative. Our redeeming work has no geographical
limit. We take the presence of God begun for us in Jesus and exercise it through our common work in his
Spirit, throughout the Earth.
Our responsibility, if Pentecost means anything, is to be the powerful, self-giving presence of God for
the re-union of all humanity. Our anthem on this pilgrimage can begin with the insight of 1 John 4:16:
God is love,
And all who abide in love
Abide in God,
And God in them.
Reflection points:
1. What are the gifts and talents that I have which I can use to contribute to the building of one
world within my personal circumstances?
2. Taking into consideration the pandemic or seeing the pandemic as an opportunity, how can I
help bring love, peace, and unity to this world?