Pentecost Sunday – May 15, 2016

Acts 2:1-11; 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13; Jn 20: 9-23 

A ship strayed off course near San Diego some years back. It became stuck in a reef at low tide. Twelve tugboats were unsuccessful in their attempts to budge it. Finally, the captain instructed the tugs to go back home. He sighed, "I'll just be patient and wait." He waited until high tide. All of a sudden the ocean began to rise. What human power could not do, the rising tide of the Pacific Ocean did. It lifted that ship and put it back into the channel. Something like that happened to the early Church on the Day of Pentecost. They were all together in one place – confused, unmotivated and fearful – when suddenly the tide of Holy Spirit rolled in.

Introduction: The Jewish Pentecost: Both the Jews and the Christians now celebrate Pentecost.  Along with the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, Pentecost was one of the major feasts of the Jews.  During these three great Jewish festivals, every male Jew living within twenty miles of Jerusalem was legally bound to go to Jerusalem to participate in the feast.  The word Pentecost is Greek for pentecostes which means “fiftieth.” The feast received this name because it was celebrated fifty days after the Feast of the Passover.  Another name for the Jewish Pentecost is Shebuot or "The Feast of Weeks."  It was originally a day of thanksgiving celebrated seven weeks (a Sabbath of Sabbaths), after the beginning of the harvesting for the completion of the harvest.  During Passover, the first omer (a Hebrew measure of about a bushel), of barley was offered to God.  At Pentecost, two loaves of bread were offered in gratitude for the harvest.  Later, the Jews added to the Feast of Pentecost the element of Yahweh’s covenant with Noah, which was made fifty days after the great deluge.  Still later, this feast  became an occasion to thank God for His Sinaitic covenant with Moses, which occurred fifty days after the beginning of the Exodus from Egypt.

The Christian Pentecost: Pentecost marks the end and the goal of the Easter season.  For Christians, it is a memorial of the day the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and the Virgin Mary in the form of fiery tongues, an event that took place fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus.  The Paschal mystery of the Passion, the Death, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of Jesus is completed in the sending of the Holy Spirit by the Father at the request of the Son upon his disciples. The feast also commemorates the official inauguration of the Christian Church by St. Peter’s apostolic preaching, which resulted in the conversion of 3000 Jews to the Christian faith that very day.  Pentecost is thus the official birthday of the Church. But This Rock Magazine reports that there are now 34,000 Protestant denominations which means that, on the average, more than sixty-nine new denominations have sprung up every year since the beginning of the Reformation in 1517.  So whose birthday is it anyway?  You could say, "Pentecost is the birthday of the Church Jesus established nearly 2,000 years ago." Today’s Scripture readings remind us that Pentecost is an event of both the past and the present.  The main theme of today’s readings is that the gift of the Holy Spirit is something to be shared with others.  That is, the readings remind us that the gift of the Holy Spirit moves its recipients to action and inspires them to share this gift with others.

The first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-11), describes in detail the miraculous transformation that took place during the first Christian Pentecost, thus fulfilling Jesus’ promise to his Apostles.   There was first “a noise like a strong, driving wind.”  Then there were “tongues as of fire” resting on the disciples, and each of them was filled with the Holy Spirit.  The first manifestation of their reception of the Holy Spirit came when the Apostles rushed out to the street and began to proclaim the good news of Jesus, and everyone there (regardless of their many different native languages), was able to understand them “in his own tongue.”  The Jews in the crowds came from sixteen different geographical regions.  The miracle of tongues on Pentecost thus reverses the confusion of tongues wrought by God at the Tower of Babel, as described in Genesis 11.  Later, the Acts of the Apostles describes how the Holy Spirit empowered the early Christians to bear witness to Christ by their sharing love and strong faith.  This "anointing by the Holy Spirit” also strengthened the early Christian martyrs during the period of brutal persecution that followed.  

In the second reading (I Cor 12:3-7, 12-13), St. Paul explains how the sharing of the various spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit enriches the Church.  He refers to the varieties of gifts given to the Church as coming from the same Spirit who activates all of them in Christians for the common good.  They are described as the gifts, fruits and charisms of the Spirit.  They may take different forms like prophecy, teaching, administration, acts of charity, healing and speaking in tongues, and they may reside in different persons like Apostles, prophets, teachers, healers and so on.  Paul lists the fruits of the Spirit in his Letter to the Galatians “What the Spirit brings is … love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (5:22).  He continues, “Since the Spirit is our life, let us be directed by the Spirit” (5:25).  Paul insists that these spiritual gifts are to be used in the present time for the benefit of others, for the common good and for the building up of the body of Christ.

Today’s gospel relates how the risen Jesus gave his Apostles a foretaste of Pentecost on the evening of Easter Sunday by appearing to them  and entrusting to them the continuance of the mission given him by his heavenly Father.  He then empowered them to do so  by breathing upon them and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  On the day of Pentecost, Jesus fulfilled his promise to send the Advocate or Paraclete. The gift of the Spirit would also enable them to fulfill Jesus’ commission to preach the gospel to all nations.  Today’s gospel passage tells us how Jesus, at the same time on that first Easter Sunday, gave to the Apostles the power and authority to forgive sins.  “Receive the Holy Spirit.  For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.”  These wonderful words which bind together inseparably the presence of the Holy Spirit and the gift of forgiveness are referred to directly in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  But they have a much wider meaning.  Those words indicate the responsibility we are all given of being the agents of forgiveness in the world of today, which is often fiercely judgmental and vengeful.  

Exegetical notes: Role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and of the Church: How beautiful is the thought that the Holy Spirit lives within us!  Saint Paul reminds the Corinthian community of this fact when he asks, "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?" (I Corinthians 3:16).  It is the Holy Spirit who develops our intimacy with God.  "God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal 4:6).  "God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:5). "No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit" (I Corinthians 12:3).  Moreover, we know that it is the Holy Spirit who teaches us to pray (Romans 8:26).  By the power of the Spirit, we also know the Lord Jesus through his Church.  Pentecost Sunday is the birth date of the Church.  It is the Holy Spirit who enlivens, enlightens, guides, and sanctifies the Church. The Psalm refrain for this Sunday says it so well: “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.”  We know Jesus through the Sacramental Mysteries of the Church, and Holy Spirit is at the heart of the sacramental life of the Church.  Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders are the Sacramental Mysteries through which people receive the seal of the Holy Spirit.  It would be impossible for us to receive Jesus in the Eucharist without the descent of the Holy Spirit at the Epiclesis of the Divine Liturgy.  Even the forgiveness of sins comes through the Holy Spirit (John 20:21-23).  The Holy Spirit both confirmed the Apostles in Holy Orders as priests and empowered them to forgive sins by His power, a work which He continues today in each of our priests.

Life messages:  1) We need to permit the Holy Spirit to direct our lives:  a) By constantly remembering and appreciating His Holy Presence within us, especially through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation.  b) By fortifying ourselves with the help of the Spirit against all types of temptations. c) By seeking the assistance of the Spirit in our thoughts, words, and deeds, and in the breaking of our evil habits.  d) By listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the Bible and through the good counsel of others e) By fervently praying for the gifts, fruits and charisms of the Holy Spirit. f) By asking the Holy Spirit to renew our lives through a fresh anointing. g) By living our lives in the Holy Spirit, with His help, as lives of commitment, of sacrifice, and of joy.  We are called to love as Jesus loved, not counting the cost. As Saint Paul exhorts us, "Walk by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16, 25). 

2) We need to cultivate the spirit of forgiveness.  The feast of the Pentecost offers us the chance of looking at the role which forgiveness should play in our dealings with others.  Thus, we are challenged to examine our sense of compassion, our patience, tolerance and magnanimity.  Learning to forgive is a lifelong task, but the Holy Spirit is with us to make us agents of forgiveness.  If we are prepared on this day of Pentecost to receive the Holy Spirit into our lives, we can have confidence that our lives will be marked by the Spirit of forgiveness.

3) We need to observe Pentecost every day.  "It will always be Pentecost in the church," affirmed Oscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador, on Pentecost Sunday 1978, "provided the church lets the beauty of the Holy Spirit shine forth from her countenance.  When the church ceases to let her strength rest on the power from above which Christ promised her and which he gave her on that day, and when the church leans rather on the weak forces of the power or wealth of this earth, then the church ceases to be newsworthy.  The church will be fair to see, perennially young, attractive in every age, as long as she is faithful to the Spirit that floods her and she reflects that Spirit through her communities, through her pastors, through her very life." [The Violence of Love, (Farmington, PA:  The Plough Pub. Co., 1998).] Archbishop Romero’s declaration reminds us -- as does today’s Gospel -- that Pentecost is not just one day, but every day.  Without breath, there is no life.  Without the Spirit, the Church is a field of dry, dead bones.  Fulton J. Sheen once said about the Church, "Even though we are God's chosen people, we often behave more like God's frozen people--frozen in our prayer life, frozen in the way we relate with one another, frozen in the way we celebrate our faith."  Today is a great day to ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the spirit of new life and enthusiasm, the fire of God's love.  Let us repeat Cardinal Newman’s favorite little prayer, “Come Holy Spirit:”

“Come Holy Spirit
Make our ears to hear
Make our eyes to see
Make our mouths to speak
Make our hearts to seek
Make our hands to reach out
And touch the world with your love.  AMEN.”

It happened in Galveston, TX. A woman was cleaning the bottom of the cage of her parrot Chippie with the canister vacuum cleaner. She was not using an attachment on the tube. When the telephone rang, she turned her head to pick it up, continuing to vacuum the cage as she said, "Hello," into the phone. Then she heard the horrible noise of Chippie being sucked into the vacuum. Immediately she put down the phone, ripped open the vacuum bag, and found Chippie in there, stunned but still alive. Since the bird was covered with dust and dirt, she grabbed it, ran it into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held the bird under the water to clean it off. When she finished that, she saw the hair dryer on the bathroom sink. She turned it on and held the bird in front of the blast of hot air to dry him off. A few weeks later, a reporter from the newspaper that originally published the story went out to the house to ask the woman, "How’s Chippie doing now?" She said, “He just sort of sits and stares." Today’s gospel tells us that it was what happened to the apostles. They all were traumatized by the arrest and crucifixion of their master and bewildered by his post-resurrection appearances and his command to prepare for the coming of his Holy Spirit.   Many of us can identify with Chippie and the apostles. Life has sucked us up, thrown cold water on us, and blown us away. Somewhere in the trauma, we have lost our song. Hence, we, too, need the daily anointing of the Holy Spirit to keep us singing songs of Christian witnessing through agápe love.

(Source: Homilies of Fr. Anthony Kadavil)