INTRODUCTION
Today the Holy Mother the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Pentecost. It is traditionally celebrated 50 days after the resurrection of the Lord and 10 days after His Ascension. It commemorates not only the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church but it equally reminds us of the beginning of the third moment of the tripartite revelations of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, it is a principal and indispensable moment in the life of the Church. Yes, because it is on this day that the Church was born.
The Christian Feast of the Pentecost is traditionally linked with that of the Jewish Pentecost. For the Jews, along with the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, Pentecost was one of their major feasts. 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 in itself is derived from the the Πεντηκοστή (pentekostes) 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“ (the “week” of seven Sabbaths between Passover and Pentecost). It was originally a day of thanksgiving 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 took place fifty days after the great deluge. Still later, they made this feast an occasion to thank God for His Sinaitic Covenant with Moses, which occurred fifty days after the beginning of the Exodus from Egypt. Although Jewish Pentecost does not share the same dimension with the Christian Pentecost but both are linked together by two things: the fact that they are commemorated 50 days after and also because they both point to the mystery and history of salvation of a people.
FIRST READING: Acts 2:1-11
We are very much familiar with this passage of the Acts of the Apostles. It is one of those passages that are retained yearly in the liturgical calendar because of their specificity. It is only here that the event of the Pentecost is recorded in the whole of the New Testament. It contains a detailed account of the miraculous transformation that took place during the ‘first Pentecost’ (that is on the day the Apostles first received the Holy Spirit. Since then, the Church has not ceased to receive the Holy Spirit who is the life-giving Spirit for the survival of the Church), thus fulfilling Jesus’ promise to his apostles that they would receive “Power from on high.” 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 public sign of the transformative power of the Holy Spirit is visibily noticed in the courage of the formerly timid, frightened apostles who burst out of doors and began to proclaim the Good News of Jesus! It was a shock of the whole public because everyone there (regardless of their many different native languages), was able to understand the Apostles’ proclamation of the Good News of the salvation of mankind, “in his own tongue.” The Jews in the crowds came from sixteen different geographical regions. This ‘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” not only became the life of the Church but also the strength of each individual disciple to give up his/her life for the sake of the Gospel (martyrdom), during the strong wave of the brutal persecution that blew within the first and second centuries, just as it does today all over the globe where many Christians and the Church as a body continue to face persecution in all induces and varieties (through killing and through imposed ideologies). But the Good News is that the Church stands on the foundation of the Holy Spirit and can never be brought to extinction by mere mortals.
SECOND READING: I Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13
This passage is one of the important sources of the Church’s pneumatology or the theology of the Holy Spirit. It offers us a detail of how the Holy Spirit operates in the Church. It is not a dormant Spirit but always in active service, distributing His various gifts for the vivification and the sustainability of the Church as St. Paul explains here. The apostle 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; they may be granted to and reside in different persons like apostles, prophets, teachers, healer, 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”(5:22-23a). 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 the Church.
More importantly, this passage challenges us to evaluate how we use the gifts we have received. Many Christians use their gifts to create division instead of unity. Those who feel they have the gifts of healing, of vision and of prophesy see themselves as superior to others. This happens among the lay and among the clergy. Many have taken the path of disobedience. They feel that the flock of Christians that gather around them is their flock. They no longer listen to the Church authority. They feel they have gifts which their bishops don’t have. Such is an expression of ignorance because every bishop is the custodian of the heritage of his local Church. When the Spirit begins to operate in the atmosphere of disobedience then it is no longer the Spirit of Pentecost but of Babbel.
GOSPEL: John: 20:19-23
The gospel reading today is an anticipation of the day of Pentecost. It presents the account of the first post resurrection apparition of the Jesus, the promise of the Holy Spirit to them, and his commissioning of their mission to proclaim the gospel to all. He gave them the breath of the Spirit as a first gift from resurrection,“Receive the Holy Spirit” to empower them till the day of the great Pentecost.
Today’s Gospel passage also tells us how Jesus 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 with the gift of forgiveness, are referred to directly in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But they have a much wider meaning. Those words remind us of the Christian vocation we all have, to love and forgive as we have been loved and forgiven in the world of today, which is often fiercely judgmental and vengeful.
Some 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 birthday of the Church, for it was the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and Mary that brought the Church into full active life on earth, and is the Holy Spirit Who still enlivens, enlightens, guides, and sanctifies the Church; the Holy Spirit will continue to do these things and more until the end of the world, the Judgment of all humanity, and the presentation by the Father of the Purified Church, the “Bride of the Lamb” to Jesus, His Son and our Lord. The Psalm refrain for this Sunday’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps 104) 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 (Jn 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 Holy Spirit against all types of temptations; c) by seeking the assistance of the Holy Spirit in our thoughts, words, and deeds, and in the breaking of our evil habits, substituting for them habits of Goodness and Love;
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 renewing our lives through the anointing of the Holy Spirit; and
g) by living our lives in the Holy Spirit 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 Pentecost offers us the chance to look at the role which forgiveness should play in our dealings with others. Thus, we are challenged to examine our sense of compassion, 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 be Spirit-filled Christians:
Spirit-filled people acknowledge their weaknesses, ask for the strengthening, anointing and guidance of the Holy Spirit every morning, ask for His forgiveness every evening, and pass on that forgiveness to those who sin against them. Spirit-filled people are praying people. Paul encourages us, “Pray on every occasion as the Spirit leads. For this reason keep alert and never give up; pray for all God’s people” (Eph 6:18). Spirit-filled people are praying and worshipping God in their families and parishes. They try to grow continually in their Faith, and they seek out every opportunity to discover Christ and what it means to be children of God. Spirit-filled people are people who allow the Spirit to change their lives through their daily reading of the Bible and their frequenting of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist. Spirit-filled people speak words that heal, restore, make people happy and build people up, instead of tearing them down. Spirit-filled people pass on the love of God to the people living around them by their acts of kindness, mercy and charity. Hence, let us ask the Holy Spirit for a spirit of love instead of hate, a spirit of helpfulness instead of non-cooperation, a spirit of generosity instead of greed,l and a spirit of gentleness in place of our spirit of ruthlessness. (Fr. Anthony Kadavil).
4) At Pentecost let us say No to the spirit of Babel:
The biblical narrative of event of Babel (Gen. 11: 1-9) shows how language was used as an instrument of unity in evil and eventually how God sew the seed of discord (a necessary evil) so as to dispel them from achieving their aim. The passage did not only intend to explain the origin of languages but it equally narrated a further rebellion of man again his creator: that same intent of the first man to become like God. That same spirit is still alive in our society today. The spirit of scientific technocentrism has placed man in the position that he knows all and can do all without God. This was earlier expressed by the German philosopher Nietzsche in the famous phrase “the death of God” in which he demonstrated how western civilisation has brought about a decadence in moral values and the absence of divine order.
The spirit of Babel lives on today. People of same language and race see themselves as superior to others of different backgrounds. This false sense of superiority bring about dominance and infliction of evil that has continued to ruin humanity. Diversity is yet to be accepted as a great value. The recent crisis in the middle east is an evidence of the spirit of Babel where people of the same race unite to carry out evil against the other race.
The spirit of Babel is the spirit of unity in evil, violence, hatred, oppression. We must all say no to the spirit of Babbel. No one is less human and no one is more human. Humanity has a common destiny. Where we come from is just an attribute, hence accidental. It is not what define the essence of whom we are. We are first human before being from a particular background.
It is unfortunate that globalization is built on falsehood. The foundation is on economy and technology; to promote uniformity of means, of langauge and of structure but not on promotion of a concrete interpersonal relationship, culture of authentic encounter and dialogue. A project of development that does not touch the very core of the human person.
Why is our world still in shambles irrespective of the phenomenon of globalization?
Today, let us pray that the Spirit of Pentecost will gather us as He gathered people from all walks of life to hear the Apostles on that day. May we be marvelled at the beauty in others and appreciate their uniqueness. May we work towards the promotion of unity and relationship with one another knowing that all are brothers and that no one goes to heaven with an identity card indicating his place of origin.
PRAYER
Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of the faithful. And enkindle in them the fire of your love.
O God who by the light of the Holy Spirit instruct the hearts of the faithfulness, grant us we pray, that through the same Spirit, we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in his consolation, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
PAX VOBIS!
