Birthday Spirit—A Reflection on Pentecost Sunday

Happy Birthday to Us! Pentecost has been called the birthday of the Church. The disciples of Jesus had been gathered together in prayer for 9 days since the Ascension. There were about 120 of them. Luke names the Eleven Apostles, Judas’ successor, Matthias, and “Mary, the mother of Jesus.”

Imagine being there. You’ve seen or been told that Jesus has returned to the Father in Heaven. He told you that “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses…” You’re not sure what this Holy Spirit is and you’re a little nervous about being a witness. So you pray with the others. And you wait. For 9 days. It’s becoming a little routine. The feast of Pentecost is coming. What began as a feast celebration the first fruits of the spring harvest had also become a commemoration of the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai.

Suddenly, as Luke says, suddenly there is the sound of a strong driving wind. It shatters the quiet of your prayer. As you look around trying to see the source of the wind, you see a fire above you in the room. First wind, now fire. It is strange and frightening. As you watch, the fire divides into smaller flames. The flames come to rest on each of you. Luke calls what is happening being “filled with the Holy Spirit.”

What happens next is perhaps the strangest of all. You hear yourself and your brothers and sisters speaking in different languages. Those who have made the journey to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost hear the commotion and gather outside the house where you are; the same house where Jesus celebrated Passover with the Apostles. They hear you speaking in their native tongues.

In a moment the disciples went from hiding and praying privately to a very public preaching of the Gospel. This was brought about by the Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus from the Father as promised. It is a blazing beginning, a firey birth of the Body of Christ.

The Holy Spirit has come. The Church is alive. The harvest has begun. But what happens now? Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit gives gifts to the Church. This unites the Church. We need each other. The gifts are given to each for the benefit of all. The Holy Spirit also gives us the strength to fight against sin. He nurtures us not only with gifts, but with the first fruit of the Spirit; the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that nourish us to make us strong against sin.

Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit not only to bring the Church into being, but to lead and guide us. He will remind us of what Jesus taught us. As the Spirit of Truth, he will lead us into the Truth. He will lead us to Jesus.

If you want to know Jesus, you do so through the Holy Spirit. He will give you the power to live as Jesus did. He will give you the strength to suffer for the sake of the gospel and to be a witness to Jesus Christ. If you want to be like Jesus, pray that he will send the Holy Spirit into your life. Don’t worry about what others will think. Let’s imitate the early Church and, in obedience to Christ, gather in prayer and pray for a new Pentecost, a re-birth of the Church in the Holy Spirit.

Love and the Spirit--A Reflection on the 6th Sunday of Easter

Love. The word “love” occurs 9 times in today’s gospel and another 9 times in the epistle. Friend occurs 3 times in the gospel and joy twice. We expect God to love us. We don’t really believe it, but we expect it! After all, isn’t God supposed to love everyone?

One of the most astonishing statement’s in all of Scripture is found in today’s gospel reading. Jesus says “No one has greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Jesus says that we are his friends. This is the love of God we don’t expect; to be his friends. Not only that, but it is the kind of friendship that lays down its life for others.

But isn’t there a catch? Jesus' friendship seems conditional; if we do what he commands us he will be our friend. That sounds more like a servant or slave than a friend. No, we have it wrong. Christ says that he does no longer calls us slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. Isn’t that amazing? We are not slaves but friends because Jesus has told us what he is doing. He tells us through the Scriptures, the Church and the Holy Spirit.

It was the Holy Spirit who led Peter to understand that even the Gentiles are loved by God, are God’s friends. Peter was shown by the Holy Spirit in a vision that God shows no partiality. He accepts anyone who fears him and acts uprightly. In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke tells us that as Peter was still speaking these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening. God gave the Gentiles the same gift of the Spirit that he gave to the Jewish believers. He gave them himself.

Love is so essential because, as John tells us in his epistle, God is love. If we want to be like God were must love as God loves. We must love without partiality. We must accept all those who God accepts and love all those God loves. And we must lay down our lives for them. This is no sentimental love, but the love of God. It is a love, as St. Paul says, that spared not God’s own Son but delivered him up for us all. A love that will freely give us all things.

When my friend Vincent Druding was ordained to the priesthood last week, one of the verses he used on his invitations and holy cards was from today’s gospel, “No one has greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends…It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”

Vince understood that laying down his life for God’s friends is at the heart of the priesthood. It is also what we are all called to as Christians. In imitation of Christ, we love as he loves. To do this, to have the strength to lay down our lives, we must receive from the Holy Spirit God’s grace, his very life. This life comes to us through the Sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist. In Confession, we lay aside every burden and sin that clings to us and holds us back from loving God and his friends. As we receive from this altar the sacred body and blood of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, we will be filled with every grace and blessing. We will receive the strength to love as God loves. As St. John says, “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.”

Our Blessed Mother is sets an example for us. Having accepted the Father’s love by saying Yes to the angel Gabriel’s news that she was to be the Mother of the Son of God, she went to see her cousin Elizabeth. In that moment of joy and love and friendship, Mary brought Jesus to her.

Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will fall on us as he fell on the Church in Acts so that, filled with the Spirit, we will know the joy and the love and the friendship of Christ. Then let us bring that joy and the love and friendship of Christ to all of God’s friends.