Trivia question. How much money were Americans planning to spend on Mother’s Day products this year? Take a guess. If you said 36 billion dollars you are right. Imagine that! In this country Mother’s Day has become almost a “holy day of obligation.” This all began in 1907 when Anna Jarvis decided to have a memorial service honoring her late mother at a small church in Grafton, West Virginia. What started out as a small church service has become what cynics call a “Hallmark Day; “now it seems more about money than about mothers. It is the marketers, not the churches, that keep this day going.
Second question. When is Pentecost this year? Hmm. Not many hands in the air. If you said May 28, you are right. The post-Easter season culminates in a feast that celebrates what could rightly be seen as the greatest event in history—the sending of the Holy Spirit on the disciples of Jesus. Though many disciples had left everything to follow Jesus and spent three years with him, twenty-four seven, they still behaved like “scared little kids” when Jesus was arrested. It took the rebirth of the Holy Spirit inside them to empower them to begin the greatest enterprise ever known on earth.
Final question. How much money do Americans spend on Pentecost? Not much, I’m sure, and yet this day far surpasses all Hallmark days combined.
As we continue St. John’s gospel, we listen as Jesus begins to awaken expectations of a great surprise that will soon come (John 16:5-11).
“But because I told you this (that he will leave them), grief has filled your hearts. But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.”
Jesus was the greatest treasure God had ever given to the human race, and yet he says there is something better ahead. He tells his disciples that “it is better” that he leaves them. How could anything be better than having Jesus with them? For reasons we don’t understand, the Advocate could not come until Jesus returned to heaven. And having the Advocate with them was greater than having Jesus with them. Why? Because the Advocate would come, not as a leader outside themselves, but as a power within them that would enable them to do the things Jesus did and even greater ones. Filled with the Holy Spirit, the disciples would not only continue the work of Jesus but multiply it across the earth.
“But if I go, I will send him, to you.”
After he left them, Jesus would send them a gift greater than anything he gave them when he walked this earth. It was beyond their comprehension that God could plant the Holy Spirit in their hearts, making them into new temples of his presence on earth.
Though Pentecost does not compete with Mother’s Day in terms of gaining the world’s attention, it so far surpasses anything the world has to offer. As we celebrate Pentecost, we are not merely recalling the event of two thousand years ago, we are expecting that Pentecost will happen again inside us this year. The wonder of receiving the Holy Spirit in a fresh, more powerful way is what we look forward to.
On May 19 the Church urges us to join Mary and those in the Upper Room, to begin a nine-day period of prayer with expectant faith, so that our hearts are ready to receive the Gift that God wants to give us
