Introduction: May you continue to be aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, empowering you to live the life of a child of God and a disciple of the Lord Jesus.
Today we celebrate Pentecost Sunday. This day speaks about life-giving on the part of Another Who shares a part of Himself with us so that we can grow into the person we are called to be. The Holy Spirit has encouraged, and inspired, us to live out our full potential and has empowered us to do our best, not just for ourselves, but also for the GOoD of others. We should rejoice today that we have received life in the Spirit because of the gifting of the Holy Spirit. Today, because of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our midst, we celebrate life – a divine gift of love -- from One Who has loved us without counting the cost.
Pentecost – the coming of the Holy Spirit, the birthday of the Church, the end of the Easter Season. Our readings speak of the gift of the Holy Spirit and what that means for the Church, i.e., us. Today is all part of the paschal (Easter) mystery. In fact, the Gospel reading comes from a Resurrection appearance on Easter Sunday afternoon.
First Reading: Acts 2:1-11: They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak
Commentary: The ministry of Jesus starts with the coming of the Spirit at his Baptism, and so the ministry of the Church begins with the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. There can be no witness to Jesus or to his message, no spreading of the Kingship of God, without the Spirit of Jesus. Another lesson from this parallelism is that the task of the Church and the life of the Church are the same as those of Jesus himself: to bring God’s kingship to its fulfilment by bringing healing, love and joy through the message of the Risen Christ. The rushing wind and the tongues of fire are an allusion to the coming of God’s Spirit in the Old Testament upon Moses and the elders. So the new message is the fulfilment of the Old Testament, breaking out beyond the borders of Judaism to include all peoples of the world. The union of all these peoples, all understanding one language in their own way, is a deliberate contrast to the scene at the Tower of Babel, when all the peoples of the world were split up by their inability to understand one another’s languages. The list of unpronounceable peoples is itself a witness to the universality of the Church!
Responsorial Psalm 104:1,24,29-31,34: Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.
Psalm 104 celebrates God’s creative power, His majesty, and the joy found in His works. It invites us to join in praising the LORD for His wondrous creation.
Second Reading, Galatians 5:16-25: If you are led by the Spirit, no law can touch you
Commentary: In writing to the Galatians Paul insists that it is not necessary for Christians to obey the prescriptions of the Jewish Law. To prove this he appeals to the works of the Spirit which they can see among themselves: these must come from Christ, not from the Law. Since Paul adduces them as proof, the works of the Spirit must have been clearly visible. The behaviour of Christians must have been distinctly and noticeably different from that of others. In the modern world does the behaviour of Christians mark them out unmistakeably? Now Paul gives a full list of works of the Spirit and their opposites, the works of the flesh, that is, the works of natural, unreformed and selfish behaviour. Christ has sent his Spirit so that our behaviour may be completely changed, and so that we may live with his life. The works of the flesh are not merely the gross, ‘fleshly’ distortions of greed, avarice and sexual licence, but include also such failings as envy and quarrels. Paul’s list is a useful little check-list to apply to our own way of life. Has the coming of the Spirit made a difference to us? Are we notably more Christ-like than many of the good pagans around us?
Gospel, John 15:26-27,16:12-15: The Spirit of truth will lead you to the complete truth
Commentary: In Jesus’ final instructions to his disciples, gathered together at the Last Supper, he gives them four little promises about the Advocate whom he will send, send from the Father. ‘Advocate’ is really a legal term, in both English and the original Greek, and the Spirit will ‘testify’ on behalf of Jesus. The certainty and definitiveness of this terminology is important. In other sayings Jesus promises that the Advocate will lead his disciples into all truth, enabling them to understand what they cannot yet grasp. With these promises, therefore, we are celebrating the continuing presence of the Spirit, leading the Church into all truth, into a continuously fuller and more profound understanding of the mystery of Christ. It is through the Spirit that, under the guidance of the Church, each generation and culture is enabled to assimilate and express – sometimes with a wobble or two – the great truths in its own terms, each generation building on the truths perceived by previous guidance. There must be a constant renewal in our personal understanding, under the guidance and testimony of this Advocate speaking through the Church. The Advocate guides our minds, but above all the mind of the teaching Church.
Reflection: Do you know and experience in your own life the gift and power of the Holy Spirit?After his death and resurrection Jesus promised to give his disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit. He said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit! (John 20:22) Jesus knew that his disciples would need the power of the Holy Spirit to carry out the mission entrusted to them. The gift of the Holy Spirit was conditional upon the ascension of Jesus to the right hand of the Father. That is why Jesus instructed the apostles to wait in Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). Why did they need power from on high? The Gospels tell us that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit when he was baptized at the Jordan River: "And John bore witness, 'I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him... this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit'" (John 1:32,33; Mark 1:8; Matthew 3:11).
"And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness... and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee" (Luke 4:1,14).
Just as Jesus was anointed with the Spirit at the beginning of his ministry, so the disciples needed the anointing of the Holy Spirit to carry out the mission entrusted to them by Jesus. The Holy Spirit is given to all who are baptized into Jesus Christ to enable us to live a new way of life - a life of love, peace, joy, and righteousness (Romans 14:17). The Holy Spirit fills our hearts with the love of God (Romans 5:7), and he gives us the strength and courage we need in order to live as faith-filled disciples of the Lord Jesus. The Spirit helps us in our weakness (Romans 8:26), and enables us to grow in spiritual freedom - freedom from doubt, fear, and from slavery to our unruly desires (2 Corinthians 3:17; Romans 8:21). The Spirit instructs us in the ways of God, and guides us in living according to God's will. The Spirit is the source and giver of all holiness. Isaiah foretold the seven-fold gifts that the Spirit would give: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:2).
The gift of Pentecost - the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the spiritual gifts and blessings of God - are made possible through the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus. After his resurrection Jesus "breathed" on his disciples and gave them the Holy Spirit. Just as God breathed life into Adam, so the gift of the Holy Spirit is an impartation of "new life" for his people. With the gift of the Holy Spirit a new creation begins. God recreates us for his glory. Jesus' gift of peace to his disciples was more than an absence of trouble. His peace included the forgiveness of sins and the fullness of everything good. Do you want power to live a faith-filled life as a disciple of Jesus? Ask the Father to fill you with the power of his Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13).
Basil the Great (329-379 AD), an early church father, explains the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives: "The Spirit restores paradise to us and the way to heaven and adoption as children of God; he instills confidence that we may call God truly Father and grants us the grace of Christ to be children of the light and to enjoy eternal glory. In a word, he bestows the fullness of blessings in this world and the next; for we may contemplate now in the mirror of faith the promised things we shall someday enjoy. If this is the foretaste, what must the reality be? If these are the first fruits, what must be the harvest?" (From the treatise by Basil on The Holy Spirit)
The Lord Jesus offers each one of us the gift and power of his Holy Spirit. He wants to make our faith strong, give us hope that endures, and a love that never grows cold. He never refuses to give his Spirit to those who ask with expectant faith. Jesus instructed his disciples to ask confidently for the gift of the Spirit: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:13). Do you thirst for God and for the abundant life he offers through the gift of his Spirit?
Lord Jesus, I thank you for the gift of Pentecost and for the new life you offer in the Holy Spirit. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and set my heart ablaze with the fire of your love that I may serve you in joy and freedom.
Daily Quote from the Early Church Fathers: The Holy Spirit at Pentecost, by Leo the Great, 400-461 A.D.
"To the Hebrew people, now freed from Egypt, the law was given on Mount Sinai fifty days after the immolation of the paschal lamb. Similarly, after the passion of Christ in which the true Lamb of God was killed, just fifty days after his resurrection, the Holy Spirit fell upon the apostles and the whole group of believers. Thus the earnest Christian may easily perceive that the beginnings of the Old Covenant were at the service of the beginnings of the gospel and that the same Spirit who instituted the first established the Second Covenant." (excerpt from Sermon 75.1)
SUBMARINE
“It was in one Spirit that all of us, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, were baptized.” —1 Corinthians 12:13. On Pentecost, after praying for nine days, we “receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22). In fact, we are “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4). Better than that, we are baptized in the Spirit (Acts 1:5), that is, we are immersed in the Spirit. We not only drink the waters of the Spirit but, in a spiritual sense, we are under and stay under these waters.
Living under the waters of the Spirit is a new life. Naturally, when we go under water, we can’t breathe, but, supernaturally, being under the waters of the Spirit is the only way we can breathe fully. However, we are tempted to come up out of the waters of the Spirit for another whiff of the polluted air of the world and the flesh. “The flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh” (Gal 5:17). We must resist these temptations and stay immersed in the Holy Spirit. “When men have fled a polluted world by recognizing the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then are caught up and overcome in pollution once more, their last condition is worse than their first” (2 Pt 2:20).
On this Pentecost, take the plunge and live under the baptismal waters of the Holy Spirit.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, fill me, surround me, and submerge me. “No one can say: ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit.” —1 Cor 12:3. Praise You, Abba, for sending the Holy Spirit. Praise You, risen Jesus, for baptizing us in the Holy Spirit (Mk 1:8). Praise You, Holy Spirit, for filling the whole world and renewing the face of the earth! (Ps 104:30)
The personal question for today: When have I experienced the Holy Ruah of GOD breathing life into me? How did I feel at that moment? What was the result of GOD’s Spirit being made evident in my life? What gift do I wish to receive from the Holy Spirit at this time in my life? How can I make use of this gift in the spread of Gospel (Good News)?
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12 May 2024
16:12-15
Fr George
John 15:26-27
Sunday Homily
Sunday Pentecost year B
Sunday Sermon