Pentecost: Where's the fruit? - Homily for June 4

Readings for Sunday, June 4 / Pentecost: Acts 2:1-11  |  Psalm 104  |  1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13  |  John 20:19-23

The Holy Spirit dwells in our soul and in doing so enlivens that which is good and holy and seeks to destroy that which is not godly. A way of seeing if this is truly taking place in the soul is to see what fruits we produce, particularly the 12 Fruits of the Holy Spirit. So ... where's the fruit?

Black and Tan, He and I

Readings for Sunday, May 24/ Pentecost:
Acts 2:1-11
Psalm 104
1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13
John 20:19-23

As I was preparing for this homily the image that came to mind seemed a bit odd to me, but wouldn’t go away. The image was the drink known as a ‘Black and Tan.’ You begin with a good pint glass and fill it about halfway with Bass Pale Ale. Then you take a bent spoon and with the bottom of the cupped part facing up, very slowly pour Guinness on top of the spoon and allow it to settle in the glass. The density of the beers being different and the gentle pour aided by the spoon results in the beers not mixing but layering, giving it the description ‘Black and Tan’.

The reason that image came to mind is that the Holy Spirit is given to us at baptism and desires to transform our entire life, making His way into each and every moment of our day. The problem is that sometimes when we encounter God we take various types of spoons and put them in the way such that God is still part of the pint glass that is our life, but it doesn’t mess with everything. We try to make our life a Black and Tan in that we can have our nice time where God is welcome to do all sorts of things, but we can also have those places where God isn’t really part of the equation and can keep to Himself and we can keep things as we like them.

One of my favorites depictions of Pentecost is one in which Our Lady is standing joyfully in the center ready to receive the Holy Spirit but the rest of the Apostles and disciples are all falling down, fleeing the scene, many with their hands moving as if to shield themselves. It seems right because Our Lady was perfectly open to the Holy Spirit from the start but the others, like us, had to be purified and prepared for His arrival in their hearts. This is a difficult process – hence, our reluctance to begin it, instead turning to sin, grasping for control, or simply keeping ourselves to busy we don’t have time to hear the voice of God speak.

In response to any of these fears or the tendency to busy-ness, I want to invite each of you to join me in doing a ten-minute challenge for the week. Cardinal Mercier, of happy memory, was once asked about the secret of sanctity and he had this to say:

I am going to reveal to you the secret of sanctity and happiness. Every day for five minutes control your imagination and close your eyes to all the noises of the world in order to enter into yourself. Then, in the sanctuary of your baptized soul, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, speak to that Divine Spirit, saying to Him:
 O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me. Tell me what I should do; give me Your orders. I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your Will. If you do this, your life will flow along happily, serenely, and full of consolation, even in the midst of trials. Grace will be proportioned to the trial, giving you the strength to carry it and you will arrive at the Gate of Paradise, laden with merit. This submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of sanctity.

So I invite you to join with me this week in putting this secret into action. Take five minutes away from all the things of the world and rest with the Holy Spirit, pray the prayer above and then rest for a few minutes with the Holy Spirit once more, as He may desire to speak. Then, go about your day. As Cardinal Mercier noted, you’ll soon notice that  there is a peace that has come to all the other things of the day. The craziness of the world around you will still be there as before, but the peace of soul we desire will have increased and that is the desire of the Lord as today He seeks to give us peace as He gave it to His disciples. Come, Holy Spirit. Come and bring us your joy. Come and bring us your grace. Come and bring us your peace.

UNITY and YOU

Readings for Sunday, June 8/ Pentecost Sunday:
Acts 2:1-11
Psalm 104: 1, 24, 29-31, 34
1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13
John 20:19-23

Today we gather to celebrate a feast that has roots dating back well over 3000 years. That’s right 3000. We often forget that our Catholic faith didn’t just spring up out of nowhere but instead is firmly rooted in – and is the fulfillment of – the Jewish faith until the time of Christ. Our architecture, worship, teachings, are all intimately tied together. In Jewish life Pentecost was a day that God marked out seven weeks after Passover (50 days is what Pentecost indicates) for the people to turn to Him in thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth that had grown in the recent weeks. In like style, our Christian faith also turns to God 50 days after the New Passover of Easter and gives thanks to God once more, not for earthly fruits but for the fruit of the Holy Spirit who has made His dwelling among us.

In liturgical observance, we often think that the two most important feasts of the year are Christmas and Easter, but the truth is that Pentecost is more important that Christmas. It makes sense that Easter is first in rank because that is the day when Jesus conquered sin and death and opened the gates of Heaven for us. Without Easter, we all go to Hell. That’s why we sing ALLELUIA just about every other word during the Easter Vigil and all throughout the Easter season. But as we know, things didn’t just stop at Easter. The Lord Ascended into Heavenly glory, which we celebrated last weekend, and sent among us the gift of the Holy Spirit. What would have happened, you think, if Jesus gave us the great commission to baptize the nations and teach them to do all He had commanded and didn’t give us any help in carrying it out? I bet the gates of hell would have prevailed against the Church before Peter had every stepped foot out of the upper room! Without the Holy Spirit coming to us, we are as good as dead. We have no hope of doing anything good or holy because we wouldn’t have He who is holiness itself in our hearts. Pentecost means we are not alone. God is with us! Even in our very heart!

The fact that the Spirit is with us means that we are now able to carry out the mission begun by Jesus. That mission was basically to draw all of humanity to the Father. Jesus is like a big magnet who seeks to draw all people to Himself and hoist us up into the Trinitarian embrace of Love; it was about uniting us all together and going as one body to God the Father.

In the Vigil Mass yesterday we heard recounted the story of Babel from Genesis; that ancient story that explains the division of peoples. The story explains that everyone initially spoke the same language and in their pride they sought to make a name for themselves, saying, “otherwise we shall be scattered over all the earth.” They relied upon themselves rather than trusting that God wanted to do great things for them if they were humble. It was pride. Adam and Eve were the first but certainly not the last to commit it. And because they relied upon themselves rather than the Lord, they were made to speak different languages and scattered over all the earth, just as they had sought to avoid. Sin and self-seeking sows division.

In our first reading today we hear in the Acts of the Apostles that the disciples were gathered together in one place. This is significant because during the Passion of Christ they were all scattered and went their own way. But as they began to reflect afterward, they began thinking about the Lord and the promises that He had made and each began to come back to that place where Christ wanted to show them His power. They focused not on themselves but on God and were naturally drawn into union – all in the same place.

So if the mission of Jesus was to bring about unity in the world and to bring us together as one body before the Father, how are we doing? What ways are you and I actively promoting unity in our community and in the larger Church?

I can think of three ways to help us in this task: conversion of heart, thinking in the plural, and highlighting the good.

In the Gospel we just heard the Lord Jesus gave the power to forgive sins to the disciples. This was the first thing He did after the Resurrection, so that means it is of the utmost importance. Are we taking advantage of that gift? In order to build up unity and draw others to God, we must first be drawn to Him ourselves. Christ is calling us to come to reconciliation and experience the forgiveness of sins that takes away all barriers between us and the Lord and makes us conduits of grace for Him to work to reach others. A practical schedule that all of us ought to keep is to make a good confession at least once a month, to attend Mass at least once a week, and to spend time in prayer at least once a day. It is easy to find reasons not to do those things in that schedule, but if you do, you won’t regret it.

The second step is thinking in the plural. Our first step is to encounter Jesus and have the ‘me & Jesus’ moment that continually changes our hearts, but we cannot stop there. If my whole spiritual journey is ‘me & Jesus’ then our journey will end not at the pearly gates but the fire pit because our faith necessary requires us to reach out to others. ‘Whatever you do for the least of these you do to me’ means that we have to think of others and put the needs of others before our own sometimes. The perfect prayer given by Jesus reminds us of that same fact in that it begins ‘OUR Father’. We have to think not I/Me/My but Us/We/Ours and to do our best to work for the good of all and not just what benefits us most in the moment.

The third thing is to highlight the good. A couple of years ago Fr. Ronal Knott gave our continuing education conference for the priests and he was talking about factions and rifts among clergy and how easy it is to talk bad about other priests. He then challenged us not simply to avoid bad-mouthing brother priests, but to actually do some good-mouthing. That struck me because 1) is good-mouthing even a word?! And 2) how difficult is it to say something positive about others who you may not like?! All of us are members of the Body of Christ and have spiritual gifts and strengths, and even those who aren’t part of the Body of Christ yet still have some gift that builds up the world around them. Are we willing not just to avoid saying bad but to actually emphasize good things about others? To point out places where we agree rather than disagree? To list strengths and improvements instead of weaknesses and failures? We are all part of the same Body. Why not rejoice in the good that each part does and so spur the whole body forward to the glory that awaits us?

To celebrate Pentecost is not just to recall an event that happened 2000 years ago. It is to realize that the Spirit lives in us even today and seeks to continue the saving mission of Jesus in uniting all people to the Father. We have a mission and, thanks be to God, we have the gift of the Spirit to strengthen us in it. So let us thank the Lord for His love shown to us and to pray that we might be drawn ever more closely to God and many others with us.

Who Is the Spirit And Why Does He Matter?

Readings for Sunday, May 19/ Pentecost:Acts 2:1-11
Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-31, 34
1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13
John 20:19-23

As we come to this great feast of Pentecost, the conclusion to the Easter Season, we rejoice at the anniversary of the birth of the Church as the Apostles received the fullness of power from on high as the Holy Spirit descended upon them. While there are many things that could be spoken of, it seems that the most important is the person of the Holy Spirit. Often times in our world today there seems to be a lack of understanding of the Holy Spirit. We all know something of the person and story of Jesus and can conjure up a relatable image of God the Father in our heads. It’s easy then to pray to both of them because we can relate. The problem, though, is that we often struggle to really relate with the Holy Spirit. After all, in the Scriptures alone the Spirit is made manifest in tongues of fire as we hear today, in a breeze on the waters in Genesis, as a dove at Jesus’ baptism, as living water in Jesus’ preaching, and as a defender after Jesus ascends to Heaven. So what to make of all this and how can we relate with it? So we return to our original question: Who is the Holy Spirit? And from there we must ask also why is He important and how do we draw closer to Him?

So Who is the Holy Spirit? We could start with the basics and note that He is the third person of the Trinity – He is God just the same as the Father and Son are God. But even more personally for us, the Nicene Creed reminds us that He is “the Lord, the Giver of Life.” The Giver of Life – that one little statement really sums up the whole personality of the Spirit in relation to the world. The Spirit is life and where He is there is life. From the story of creation and making of Adam, to the ancient prophets pointing toward Jesus, to the Apostles, disciples, and ourselves today, anywhere we see the Spirit we see life. Pope Francis this past week even said that we could simply say that the Spirit is “God active in us.” When we go throughout our days the Spirit dwells in our heart to lead, direct, protect, strength, sustain, encourage, challenge, and enlighten us. It is only because we have the Spirit dwelling in us that we are able to do any good thing.

Now we can see the importance of the Spirit’s presence in our lives – with Him we have the life of God in us. Without Him, though we may be alive in the flesh, our soul is dead. And if our soul is dead we have no hope of eternal life. Sadly, this latter statement describes too many of us. Any of us that commits a mortal sin separates himself from God and the Spirit is not active in him. Skipping Sunday Mass, using pornography, sexual activity outside a blessed marriage, marrying outside the Church, drunkenness, and receiving Holy Communion after committing one of those sins without prior confession, to name a few, are the things that happen all too often and are the direct cause of the Spirit being quenched in our hearts, unable to work because we have rejected Him. And yet we walk around unaware because we can’t see this reality. Like the character played by Bruce Willis in the movie The Sixth Sense from 15 or so years back – he was dead all along but was unaware of it, thinking himself alive and well. For many in our world, and even in our community, the story is the same. We are dead but simply unaware. And when we are dead, we are unable to carry out fully the mission entrusted to us by God. In our second reading from the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, he reminds us that there are “different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit” and that “to each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” In short, God created all of us for a purpose and has given us spiritual gifts to help us fulfill that purpose. But if we fail to let God be active in us, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, we cannot fulfill our purpose and we impact not only ourselves but others as well. After all, we are one body in Christ, and if one part suffers that whole thing suffers. So it is important and necessary for us to have the Spirit active in us not only for our good, but for the good of others and the whole Church!

So if the Spirit is so necessary for us, how can we draw closer to Him and let Him be active in our lives? The good news is that we receive the Spirit in Baptism and are sealed with His gifts at Confirmation. But we can’t stop there. In those sacraments He is poured into our souls, if you will, but we must have Him stirred up in us the same as chocolate syrup must be stirred up in a glass of milk to change it. That stirring comes in a number of ways, but the most important is the sacrament of Reconciliation. The Gospel passage today is the first appearance of the Lord Jesus to the disciples after the Resurrection and in that He gives them the Spirit and commends them to begin the ministry of forgiveness. If we have separated ourselves by some mortal sin, then the first place to go is the confessional. We have confession available everyday and we priests are always willing to meet at another time if necessary. That is the first and most important place where the Spirit is stirred up to allow God to become truly active in us. From there we must also be people of prayer. To be able to hear the Spirit speaking we must be people of daily prayer. One particularly effective mode of prayer is to pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit and His activity in our lives. There are any number of specific prayers, but picking one of them and praying it regularly is guaranteed to be an effective means of drawing closer to the Spirit and allowing Him to guide us in the journey of faith. After all, it was the Lord Jesus Himself who said “Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it will be opened to you.” Our God is a God of faithfulness and if we make the true effort to seek His face, He will show Himself to us and we will rejoice in Him throughout this life and forever in the next. 

Pentecost

Pentecost by Jean Restout

Readings for May 27/ Pentecost Sunday:
Acts 2:1-11
Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-31, 34
1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13
John 20:19-23

One of my favorite paintings of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is by the French painter Jean Restout. In the center of the painting in an elevated place is the Blessed Mother, her hands folded in prayer as the winds whirls around her and the tongues of fire descend. Around her are the Apostles and other disciples, who, unlike the Blessed Mother, are depicted running away, falling over each other, shrinking back from the Spirit and covering their faces in fear.

As I reflected on that image, I began to reflect on who beautiful it was both visibly, but also theologically. It is a long-held belief of the Church that Mary was highly favored by God and thus given certain graces that no other person in history received. She was free from sin from the moment of her conception until her assumption into Heaven, leading her to be open to the will of God entirely and perpetually. She stands joyfully to receive the Spirit because her ‘Yes’ to God at the Annunciation never really ended, but rather continues in all things. The depiction of the Apostles and other disciples is quite profound in that it shows the reality of our sinful state. In the midst of our days there is generally a peace and joy that abides in us as the Lord walks with us, but when we come face to face with God in a powerful way there is often within our hearts a certain fear or hesitancy.

If we look at the scriptures we can all discern that the Lord calls us to Himself for three reasons: 1) to purify us in His burning love so that we might 2) be sent out to continue His mission and so 3) remain with Him forever in Heaven. To be purified and sent means that it will cost us something and so when we encounter our God our hearts immediately begin to raise questions.

What will it cost me? What will the future hold for me? What about my plans? Am I strong enough to do what God wants? And ultimately, If I give myself wholly and entirely to Christ, will I be happy?

The questions come up because there is something in us that doesn’t trust God fully yet. Unlike the Blessed Mother who was perfectly receptive to all of God’s desires, we have places in our hearts that we are unsure we can open up just yet. If these words register at all in your heart, be at peace, for the disciples and first followers of Jesus were of that same heart and yet when they set fear aside and opened up their hearts they were filled with the Spirit and changed the world.

Today we celebrate Pentecost once more, rejoicing in the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon the Church and the world. As we do so, we are reminded by St. Paul that “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” God has a plan in place for each of us and has planted the seed of gifts within our hearts. Like the disciples at the first Pentecost, may we too set aside our fears and reservations, that the Spirit might come and fill us as He did them and so produce within each of us the many gifts He has planted. May they bear much fruit, for His glory and the salvation of our souls and the souls of many others.

And so we conclude by praying that great prayer to the Holy Spirit:

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

Pentecost Novena

Pentecost by Jean Restout

Today begins the Pentecost Novena, modeling our own prayer after that of the Apostles who spent nine days praying for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them. The prayers (found HERE) are relatively short and incredibly powerful.

Also, the New Theological Movement blog has a nice little write-up on novenas and the theology of the number nine HERE.

Veni, Sancte Spiritus!

New Pentecost

Readings for Sunday, June 12/ Pentecost: 

Acts 2:1-11

Psalm 104:1,24,29-21,34

1 Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13

John 20:19-23

In the celebration of the Ascension of the Lord last weekend, we heard the commission that Jesus gave to the Apostles. He told them, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” What a difficult task to give to a bunch of cowards! Jesus didn’t give the Apostles a mission that brought them around to hospitable people who would listen attentively to their teachings and rejoice at finally hearing the truth. No – they were sent out as sheep among wolves. A single wolf in a flock of sheep can do serious damage; think about being one sheep in a whole pack of wolves. Their suffering was guaranteed by the Lord and certainly came to pass. In a world full of violence and murder, neglect of the poor, political trouble and corrupt leaders, racism, abortion and infanticide, human trafficking, religious persecution, war, and an overall lack of understanding of the true dignity of every man and woman, the Apostles and their followers preached a message wholly contradictory to the world. For it most of them won the crown of martyrs and certainly endured countless unknown trials before that final sacrifice. But you have to wonder: how does this group of men who abandoned our Lord for fear of suffering anything themselves come to have the courage to go before the whole world to preach and die for the gospel? They were filled with the Holy Spirit.

This group of men who are described in the Gospel today as being locked in a room for fear of the Jews are given the grace to go out into the world because the Lord sends the Holy Spirit upon them. As Saint Paul reminds us, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit,” and so we see that it is only in receiving the Holy Spirit that they are able to truly preach the gospel. Without Pentecost, they would remain the same men that abandoned the Lord and locked themselves in their own room.

Throughout his twenty-six years as Pope, Blessed John Paul II often spoke of the reality that each of us is called to continue this mission given to the Apostles, that each of us is called to do and make disciples of the nations and teach all that He had commanded. While the Apostles and those we often think of as ‘missionaries’ today had the challenge of taking the gospel to people who had never heard of Christ before – the mission ad gentes or to the nations – there is yet another type of mission to be carried out. This mission is what the Blessed John Paul dubbed the ‘New Evangelization.’ Rather than trying to take the gospel to those who haven’t heard it before, the challenge that many nations face is the reality that many of our Catholic and Christian brothers and sisters have left the faith or have virtually no knowledge of the gospel. All of  us gathered here have the mission to re-evangelize them, to be able to once again step out into a world that is not always hospitable to us and to preach the gospel just as the Apostles did in their day. We have the challenge to be that bold witness to the world that Jesus is risen, the Spirit is moving, and this life is only the first part of all eternity.

And just as the Apostles had the grace to continue the mission of Evangelization only because of the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost, we can only carry out the mission of the New Evangelization if we experience a New Pentecost in our own lives. We must let the power of the Holy Spirit descend upon us and allow Him to work through us! To use Blessed John Paul’s own words, “we must rekindle in ourselves the impetus of the beginnings and allow ourselves to be filled with the ardour of the apostolic preaching which followed Pentecost” (Novo Millenio Ineunte, 40).

Each of us received the gift of the Holy Spirit at our baptism, and if we were confirmed we were sealed with the Spirit once more. But just because we received the gift of the Spirit doesn’t mean we make use of it. Like when you squeeze chocolate syrup into a glass of milk – if you don’t stir it up, the syrup just settles on the bottom. The same thing can happen with the Holy Spirit. The challenge is to allow the Holy Spirit to be so stirred up inside of us that we are not just full of the Holy Spirit but that the Spirit is overflowing into everything that we do. Then we truly have the grace to carry out the New Evangelization. As I conclude the homily I invite all of you to join with me in prayer for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit might truly come alive in our hearts and be an impetus to change for our community.

O Lord Jesus Christ Who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Your work in the souls of Your Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me that He may perfect in my soul, the work of Your grace and Your love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Your divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with You and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, and the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Your true disciples and animate me in all things with Your Spirit. Amen.

(http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/pentecost/seven.htm).

Novena Time!!!

Remember that the novena to the Holy Spirit begins today in preparation for the Solemnity of Pentecost. EWTN has it here: http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/pentecost/seven_tx.htm